






4 o*. 



% ••-• 











ff^; .>^-^. \ W; ^/-..^ l^; ^ ,.-,^ _ .^^^^p., ^^,..,^^ 



^/ ^ 



..' ^ 



<^ *'Tri» ,0 



. . * A 







CO o 






"*'-''^*'-\.";^°'^:^^:>. ..-^'..-^kr^. .'°"-.:^^-. 



"LORENA" 



Poetry by Rev. H. D L. Webster 



Composed & Arranged by J P, Webster 







i 



M: 



W: 



t^ 



.-*.-«H^ 



-t:^- 



a^ 



1. The years creep slow-Iy by, Lo - re 

2. A hun - dred months have pass'd,Lo-re 

3. We loved each oth- er then, Lo - re 

4. It mat • ters lit -tie now, Lo-re 



na, 
na, 
na, 
na. 



The snow 
Since last 
More than 

The past 



is on the grass 

I held that hand 

we ev - er dared 

is in th'e-ter- 






a - 
in 
to 
nal 




gain, 

mine, 

tell; 

Past, 



The sun's 

And felt 

And what 

Our heads 



low down the sky, Lo - re 
the pulse beat fast, Lo - re 
we might have been, Lo - re 
will soon lie low, Lo - re 



na, 
na, 
na, 
na. 



Tl 
Tt 

H 
Lif 



!*»: 



n 



1=3=^,- 






i 



-.- X 












Ota 



J 



rrJT 



-^ — \- 
=5= 



=5 -jg- 



i:^ 



frost gleams where the flowr's have been, 
mine beat fas - ter far than thine, 
but our lov-ing prosper'd well — 

tide is eb- bing out so fast. 



But the heart throbs on as warm - ly now, 

A hundred months — 'twas flow'ry May, 

But then , ' tis past — the years are gone, 

There is a Fu-turel thank God, 



As 

When 

I'll 

Of 




when the sum-mer days were nigh ; 

up the hi! - ly slope we climbed, 

not call up their shadowy forms ; 

life this IS so small a part I 



Oh 1 the sun 
To watch 

I'll say 

'Tis. . . dust 



can nev - er dip, so 
the dy - ing of the 
to them, "lost years sleep 
to dust be-neath the 




A - down 

And hear 

Sleep on 1 

But there. 



af - fee -tion's cloud -less 
the dis - tant church bells chimed, 
nor heed life's pelt - ing storm." 
up there, 'tis heart to ■ heart. 



The 

To 

I'll 

'Tis 




sun 

watch 

say 

dust 



can nev - er dip so low, 
the dy - ing of, the day, . 
to them, "lost years, sleep on ! 
to dust be-neath the sod : . 



A- down 
And hear 
Sleep on I 

But there, 



af- fection's cloudless sky. 
the distant church bells chimed, 
nor heed, life's pelt-ing storm. 
up there, 'tis heart to heart. 



H-J-J- 






wm-^- 



J.J-JJ4 






=|: 



iAA~-A-- 



.-jf 



f 



■r ^ -If 






jrena"— sd. 



1 






1= 



r r 



By Mrs. T. P, O'Connor 



Little Thank You 
My Beloved South 




^L^^~7^^^^ ^"{^t 



/^^^<^<^:.^^^ 



My Beloved South 



n^Mclf^ctJ^^) By 

Mrs. T. P. O'Connor 

Author of "Little Thank You," "I Myself," etc. 



The Sun is Laughter; for 'tis He who maketh joyous the 
thoughts of men, and gladdeneth the infinite world," 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Zbe linicfterbochcr press 

1913 



hZ/O 



Copyright, 1913 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Ube ftnicbecbocitcr press, Dew Jf^orfi 



THOMAS NELSON PAGE 



Each day the memory of the old South becomes more and more a 
cherished dream. Its bounteous hospitality, its quixotic chivalry, its 
daring courage, its spotless honour, its poetic understanding, are reced- 
ing into the heroic past. Therefore, we of the Old Guard must stand 
together, and do what we can to keep the younger and more practical 
generation Unforgetting. My pen is freighted with appreciation, but 
is, alas, inadequate, while already your genius has made " The tender 
grace of a day that is dead" immortal; and so, after many years of 
affectionate friendship, I dedicate this book to you. 



A FRIENDLY WORD 

A WANDERING minstrel I, a thing of shreds and 
patches. ..." My book is but a reflection of 
myself; its sole recommendation, — that my bale of 
cotton grew under warm sunshine, and every thread 
spun and woven into material is from the old and new 
South. "I have gathered me a posy of other men's 
thoughts, only the thread that holds them together is 
mine. " Some of the stories have even been told before, 
but they belong to me by right of inheritance and 
Love, so may I not tell them again? 

After many years of absence, when the riches and 
abundance of my coimtry were displayed to me, it was 
my ambition to write an informing, practical, statistical 
book. Such a one as would induce English settlers to 
set sail for the Southern States. There, English tradi- 
tion, an ever-green, would extend a fraternal welcome, 
and with a small capital, or even none at all, except 
health and strong hands, a Home awaits them. 

But my frank friends discouraged this undertaking. 
There are so many writers, they said, who know more 
of the progress, resources, and wealth of the country 
than you possibly can know. The most you can hope 
to do, is to make an entertaining South. 

It was the great William Pitt, who, when a man 
was recommended to him because he talked sense, said : 
"Anybody can talk sense, Sir; can he talk nonsense?" 
And if now and then I have struck a rag-time tune — 



vi A Friendly Word 

and who has a better right — underneath the nonsense 
and plantation songs, one earnest wish has been always 
in my heart, to bring England and America closer to- 
gether, and to make them understand each other. 

Men and women in Virginia have said to me, "I love 
Virginia, and after Virginia — England." For myself, I 
love America in England, and England in America; 
they are both my countries, and if a little word of mine 
has made greater friendliness even for a brief moment 
between them, my book will not have been written in 
vain. 



^a^fc 



/i:5 




The Warm Springs, 
Virginia. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Duvals i 

II. Youth's Glad Success .... 21 

III. The Conquering Pioneer • • • 35 

IV. Sam Houston ..... 47 
V. Across the Sea to Maryland . . 70 

VI. Christmas and Old Memories . . 84 

VII. Charles Town and Washington . . 98 

VIII. The Symbol OF THE vSouTH . . • 117 

IX. Hospitable Charleston . . 131 

X. The Charm of Charleston — The Silver 

Garden ...... 147 

XI. In Savannah ..... 161 

XII. The Mules of Georgia . . .180 

XIII. The Suwanee River . . . .192 

XIV. The Women of New Orleans . . 202 
XV. Old- World New Orleans . . . 220 

XVI, A Russian Romeo and Juliet . 235 

XVII. An Old-Time Plantation . . 248 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. The Mississippi River .... 267 

XIX. Harris Dickson 282 

XX. A Present-Day Plantation . . . 300 

XXI. My Hero 316 

XXII. Sir Walter Scott's Responsibility for 

THE Civil War ..... 327 

XXIII. Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky . 337 

XXIV. A Virginia Gentleman . . . 358 
XXV. A Brave Lady 387 

XXVI. My Healing South .... 399 



My Beloved South 



My Beloved South 



CHAPTER I 

THE DUVALS 

One bright memory — only one; 

And I walk by the light of its gleaming; 

It brightens my days, and when days are done 

It shines in the night o'er my dreaming. 

Father Thomas Ryan. 

IN my wandering life of deepest shadow and occasional 
sunshine, there is but one thing for which I am 
altogether devoutly thankful, — I was bom and bred 
in the South, and for generations on both sides of my 
family my ancestors were Southern people; conse- 
quently, without conflict, my qualities and defects are 
those of my race. For my own personal defects, given 
me at birth with a free hand by my whimsical fairy 
godmother, neither my family nor my beloved land is 
responsible. 

My great-grandfather. Major Duval, fought in the 
War of the Revolution, and gave goodly sums towards 
the cause. He married at twenty-three a Miss Pope 
of Virginia, an heiress of whom he made rather a sudden 
and theatrical conquest, not later than five minutes 
after he discovered her. She, a fair-haired, dimpled 
beauty, wearing a silken hood, a green merino gown, 

I 



2 My Beloved South 

little calfskin shoes with silver buckles, a black silk 
apron, and open-work mittens, was walking one golden 
October afternoon in a primeval forest near the banks 
of the Shenandoah. In the angle of her round arm lay 
a big ball of worsted, and the sun slanting down on her 
glancing needles struck diamond brilliance from their 
quick activity. 

My great-grandfather, returning from the chase, 
young, dashing, good-looking, suddenly beheld this 
vision. He wore the buckskin clothes of the Virginian 
hunter, and carried his day's trophy of wild turkey, 
ducks, and rabbits slung across his shoulder. His 
rifle held one last bullet. 

Quickly advancing to the astonished young lady, he 
took off his bearskin cap, and making a bow so low 
that the turkeys touched the ground, he said, " Madame, 
permit me." Then lifting the ball of worsted from its 
envied resting-place, he lightly tossed it high into the 
air, shot the bullet straight through its heart, and as 
it came down caught it and placed it, smoking with 
powder and with love, in her apron pocket. 

The dimples all appeared as she said, "Sir, you can 
shoot and hit the mark." 

He bowed again and answered, "So can Cupid, and 
I hope," — pointing to her fluttering heart — "in the 
right direction." 

The young lady, a very distant cousin whom he had 
never met, was from Richmond, visiting an aunt 
on an adjoining plantation. He walked home with 
her, in the mellow sunshine of an Indian summer 
afternoon, through the wonderful scarlet and gold 
forests of the early Virginia autumn, leaving on the 
doorstep of the wide plantation house his day's hunt 
as his first love offering. 



The Good Major Duval 3 

The next day he re-appeared, brave in satin small- 
clothes and lace ruffles, the queue of his fair hair tied 
with a silken ribbon, and offered himself with proper 
dignity as suitor for her hand. A month later they 
were married and lived happy ever afterwards. 

I have an idea that my great-grandmother was the 
more interesting of the two (the Popes are an intellec- 
tual, fascinating family), and when she died so intense 
was her husband's grief that finally nature mercifully 
relieved him with a gentle absent-minded forgetfulness. 

When his children grew up, he sold his winter home 
in Richmond and afterwards lived entirely on his 
plantation, devoting the long summer days to bass 
fishing in the Shenandoah, which is no mean sport, as 
bass are wary and valorous fighters. Indeed, a mature 
father or bachelor fish of middle age and accumulated 
wisdom is seldom caught; the reckless youngsters who 
disregard the admonitions of their seniors are the only 
fish to be inveigled by the most tempting bait. Finally 
my great-grandfather gave up even this sport, and 
spent his days on the wide balcony which faced the 
virgin forest where he first saw the merry coquettish 
face of my great-grandmother. He read the Richmond 
newspaper from beginning to end, and gave it to a 
small darkey standing in attendance. This boy ran 
round the house, and handed him back the same paper, 
which "the good Major Duval" read all over again 
with reminiscent but deep satisfaction. It was 
evidently from this ancestor that my quite imbecile 
forgetfulness comes. 

The old miniatures and portraits give him a round 
face, baby-like pink-and- white skin, fair hair, blue 
eyes, and the most friendly and engaging expression. 
How inevitably hereditary traits appear even in the 



4 My Beloved South 

third and fourth generation. My beautiful grandson 
of five said to me after a French lesson the other day : 
"Damma, isn't it sad that one so young as I should 
have such a bad memory?" And immediately the 
picture of his Virginia ancestor, sitting on a wide 
• vine-clad balcony and reading quite happily a news- 
paper for the fourth time, suggested itself to me. 

Another Miss Pope, a kinswoman of mine, married 
and came to Texas to live. She was tall and dark, with 
jet-black hair, pearl-white teeth, a touch of dark down 
on her upper lip, and the most enchanting speaking 
voice I have ever heard. It was like golden velvet, 
and she talked with great brilliancy and a wealth of 
information on every conceivable subject, for she lived 
in books and not in the life around her. To that she 
was extremely indifferent, and had the reputation of 
being a humorously bad housekeeper. 

My mother, with her sense of order and Spartan-like 
cleanliness, frankly disapproved of her, but my father 
loved her, and, as she was not his wife, forgave her 
disorder. 

One afternoon when I was a very little girl my father 
drove out to see her, taking me with him. She lived a 
few miles from Austin and a little creek ran through 
the garden, so the flowers were glorious and plentiful, 
being always supplied with water. The wide hall was 
hung with family portraits, but the floor looked like a 
village street, literally covered with dried mud in little 
footprints, as if animals had wandered in and out at will. 

The negro maid said Miss Anna was sick, but would 
the Judge and Miss Betty go right in. And we were 
shown into an immense bedroom opposite the drawing- 
room. A slight fever had given her a colour and she 
looked very handsome with her dark hair wandering 



A Lady of Intellect 5 

over the pillow in two long thick plaits. Beside her 
stood a small table piled with books ; some had toppled 
on to the bed, and there were books on the window-seat 
and on the sofa, and my father relieved the chair he 
was to sit upon of quite a small library. 

He had first selected a large puffy-looking rocker, 
but our hostess smilingly admonished him: "Don't 
take that chair, Judge, or you will sit on the new baby." 
Then, seeing my eager look of interest, she said: "Go 
over and look at him, Betty," and tiptoeing over to the 
soft white bundle, I found that it was an adorable 
three-months-old fat baby, sound asleep. 

Then she began to talk, and though I was too little 
really to understand, the soft musical many-toned 
voice thrilled me with pleasure. After a while a 
stirring was heard under the bed, and an obese familiar 
sleepy pig made his appearance. He walked into the 
centre of the room, squealed loudly, stood for a moment, 
then trotted leisurely through the doorway, down the 
hall and out into the garden. She dreamily regarded 
but made no comment on the pig. Her rich honeyed 
tones continued unfalteringly, I was told afterwards 
that she was giving the last lines of Keats's Ode to the 
Nightingale. The pig, however, disturbed the child, 
who cried, and my father, loving babies like a woman, 
lifted the new man in his arms, hushed him, and began 
to walk the floor. 

Presently a pet peacock, the hardest bird in the 
world to tame, with his tail magnificently spread, stood 
in the doorway, advanced proudly into the room, but 
gave a loud shriek at seeing a stranger and fled down 
the hall, while no comment was made on him. It 
seemed to me that I was in a wonderful fairy dream, 
with such lovely things happening — a beautiful lady 



6 My Beloved South 

with long plaits, a soft pink baby, a peacock and a pig. 
Oh! I thought, if my home was only like this, how 
happy I should be. 

My father's voice brought me back from my dreams. 
He was saying, "Where is your pretty Yankee gover- 
ness?" Mrs. Berkeley answered with a merry twinkle 
in her eye, "Gone. That's the third. Judge, and I am 
going to have a new petition added to the Litany, ' And 
from governesses, good Lord deliver us.' " This 
seemed to me a most beautiful sentiment, for I, too, 
wished to be delivered from governesses. I was too 
young to know that good-looking George Berkeley 
suffered from an impressionable nature. But eventually 
his wife, eight children, and later a strong-minded and 
elderly German governess, transformed him into a 
most exemplary husband. 

My grandfather. Governor William Peyton Duval, 
was a son of the good Major Duval. His boyhood was 
spent in Richmond, Virginia. The house was kept by 
Aunt Barbara, a negro woman who was almost white. 
A strong character, quick-witted and capable, she had 
taught herself to read and write, an almost unheard-of 
accomplishment for a negro in those far-away days, 
and she was painfully thrifty, locking up everything in 
the establishment, and carrying a huge bunch of keys 
at her belt. One of them was the key to the pantry, 
where she spent twenty minutes every morning with a 
little negro to dip out sugar, coffee, tea, flour, raisins, 
currants, citron, butter, lard and meal. And never 
did her lynx eyes relax their vigilance, so there were no 
peculiar secret cakes from pickings in the pantry to be 
stealthily cooked in the cabins at nightfall, as often 
occurred in a Southern home. 

I remember at the tender age of seven partaking of 



William Peyton Duval 7 

an odd little cake made of rice, two raisins, one almond, 
a cucumber pickle, a few tea leaves, two lumps of 
sugar, a pinch of flour, and an amber morsel of citron. 
Baked in wood ashes on the hearth of Mammy's cabin, 
it seemed to me a delicious, though peculiar morsel. 
These were the gleanings of Henrietta, my little negro 
maid and playmate, who dipped for my mother when 
she unlocked her pantry in the morning. Not always 
observant, my mother gave Henrietta an opportunity 
to "borrow" with her lightning quick fingers. 

Aunt Barbara knew the negroes and trusted none of 
them. Even the wearing apparel of the Quality was 
kept under lock and key. At half-past seven in the 
morning the body servants of the gentlemen were 
supposed to stand before an immense blue press, and 
Aunt Barbara counted out under-linen, socks, white 
waistcoats, and pocket handkerchiefs. If a lagging 
valet appeared at a quarter to eight he returned empty- 
handed to his master, who gave him such a dressing 
down that the next morning he waited beforetime for 
the unlocking of the press. In this way the house was 
spotlessly clean, the linen in order, and the lax easy- 
going ways inherent in Southern people were counter- 
acted by vigilant management. 

My great-grandfather always had family prayers, 
and each person present was expected to repeat a verse 
from Scripture. The Bible was the dearest and most 
revered book on earth to Aunt Barbara. Any chap- 
ter, any verse was suitable for her delivery. And each 
morning the family waited expectantly on her selection, 
which varied from the New Testament to Deuteronomy 
or the book of Job. One unlucky day for my grand- 
father, an exuberant boy of fourteen, Aunt Barbara 
fixed a piercing eye on him and said in a sonorous voice. 



8 My Beloved South 

"Remember Lot's wife." An explosion of laughter 
followed and from that moment she was a sworn and 
somewhat unjust enemy to him. 

A brother-in-law of my great-grandfather's had been 
to Spain and was much impressed by the Spanish mules. 
He said the prettiest sight in Madrid was a lovely 
coquettish woman, a rose under each ear, a white lace 
mantilla thrown over her head, sitting in an open 
carriage driven by a picturesque coachman clad in 
scarlet, and drawn by jet-black mules made splendid 
by gay and jingling harness. So he brought back from 
Barcelona a number of Jacks, thinking to mingle the 
blood of Virginia thoroughbreds with that of Spanish 
plebeians, but horses in that part of the country were 
of the purest pedigree. All their owners scorned the 
idea of mules, never mind their strength or their powers 
of endurance. So the big-headed, noisy Jacks were 
turned loose about the fields and grew fat and saucy 
from having too much grass and too little exercise. 

One day my grandfather was startled by a strange 
mighty braying. At first he was frightened; then he 
saw an animal looking at him with faithful eyes and as 
he said, "A sort of horse look," encouraging to friend- 
ship. He tried to mount the discovery, when deftly 
and quickly, the rider was thrown high in the air, and 
the horse-like beast with triumphant heehaws galloped 
off in the distance. Jack, however, was later caught and 
ridden every day, and finally young Duval learned the 
dexterity of the rancher in keeping his seat. The other 
boys of the neighbourhood soon followed his example 
and the Jacks rapidly grew thinner by hard exercise. 

In October he and half a dozen lads planned an 
excursion, starting at earliest dawn to gather nuts. 
For this purpose a big Jack was corralled the night be- 



William Peyton Duval 9 

fore and placed in the "smoke-house." A little one- 
roomed log cabin, with a thin odoriferous line of smoke 
rising from the chimney, and slowly making delicious 
hams and tongues, was to be found on every well-ap- 
pointed Southern place. The next morning the unlucky 
boy overslept himself, and Aunt Barbara, up at day- 
light, dressed in stiffly starched purple calico, a gorgeous 
plaid head handkerchief, wide half-hoops of gold 
dangling from her ears, and all her keys jingling at her 
side, proceeded to the smoke-house and unlocked the 
door. She had slept ill the night before and dreamed 
of the devil. Suddenly, lurid eyes confronted hers, a 
wide mouth opened, showing great teeth, a huge voice 
emitted a brazen, horrid sound, and Aunt Barbara 
was knocked down, trampled upon, and thrown into a 
fit. 

In those days when kindred and hospitality were part 
of the religion of the South, no household was com- 
posed of only the immediate family. My great-grand- 
father's brother-in-law, an irritable little man, lived with 
him, and he soon ferreted out the author of Aunt 
Barbara's illness, and not satisfied with giving the boy 
one beating he thrashed him every time she had a fresh 
fit. This treatment developed in my grandfather a 
determination to leave home. He said to his father : 
" I am going to Kentucky. I am too old to be thrashed, 
and no house is big enough to hold both Uncle John 
and me." His father answered, very quietly: "Then 
you had better go, for John is our kin; I cannot ask 
him to leave my house." 

Young Duval loyally said, "I don't expect you to, 
sir, I will leave the house to him.^^ 

He began then to develop his fine character of sus- 
tained courage and dogged resolution. The winter 



lo My Beloved South 

passed without his speaking again of leaving home, but 
he kept to his determination. 

Aunt Barbara, quite recovered, saw a change in her 
boy, and was most attentive to him, saying, "I did n't 
mind, honey. I knowed you did n't mean to hurt old 
Barbara. I jus' wants you to run roun' an' laugh like 
you use ter. You studies too much to suit me. What 
you thinkin' 'bout, chile?" 

"Aunt Barbara," said the boy, "I 'm going to Ken- 
tucky next month." 

"Now," said Aunt Barbara, quite ashey-looking, 
"who ever heard de beat ob dat? Ain't Virginia, 
where you wuz born an' raised, good enough for you? 
An' (breaking down) I wuz wid yo' ma when you wuz 
bom. I held you in dese arms when you wuz a hour 
old. I knows I bin strict wid you, I bleeged to be, 
but you jus' like my own chile. Oh, honey, don't go 
'way. Jus' go out on de common an' ketch dat brayin' 
jackass, an' I promise you, he kin stay a week in de 
smoke-house." 

Aunt Barbara began to cry and these two were friends 
again. But the steady look never left the boy's face, 
and in May, when the trees were green and the flowers 
in blossom, he said to his father, "I am leaving for 
Kentucky to-day. Will you give me an outfit, sir?" 

His father looked disappointed and said, "I thought 
3^ou had given up that foolish idea," but opening a desk, 
he took out a long green silk knitted purse, filled with 
gold, and handed it to the boy. 

"Thank you," said the lad, "and of course I will 
take my servant and my horse." 

"No," said the father, "you don't know how to take 
care of yourself. You are not to be trusted with a 
slave and a saddle-horse. If you go, you go alone." 



William Peyton Duval ii 

"Then," the boy said proudly, "I will make my way 
as best I can." 

Probably his father thought hardships and discom- 
forts would soon bring him back to Virginia. His only 
sister, a sweet little girl, clung round his neck in tears, 
and he had to gulp back a few of his own, which he 
managed to do. 

"When are you coming back?" said his little sister, 
when at last he was ready to start. 

"Never, by heaven," he said, "until I come back a 
Member of Congress from Kentucky." 

And he fulfilled that promise. The little sister 
grew up, married, went to Texas to live, and became 
the mother of five sons. They all fought in the Con- 
federate army and not one returned to the broken- 
hearted mother. Her eldest son, William Howard, a 
very brilliant and attractive young lawyer, studied law 
with my father. He was one of the first officers killed 
at Fort Sumter. 

On the way to Kentucky the lad had the first oppor- 
tunity of showing the true metal of his fine courage. 
He had stopped at an eating-house and heard two 
rough men say he was probably a runaway apprentice 
and should be stopped. After he had finished his 
dinner he went quietly out of the back door, but think- 
ing it cowardly to steal away, he turned and walked 
boldly to the front door. 

"Where are you going, boy?" said one of the 
men. 

"That 's none of your business," said the boy. 

"Yes, it is," said the man, "you 're a runaway." 
And he came forward to seize him, but the lad whipped 
out his pistol, and pointing it said, " If you lay a hand 
upon me I '11 shoot you!" The man stepped back very 



12 My Beloved South 

quickly and his companion said, "He's dangerous, 
let him alone." 

After this he was afraid of civilisation and tried 
camping out at night, and stopping at inns for his 
meals during the day. At Brownsville he arrived tired, 
soiled, and looking like a young tramp. The proprietor 
of the inn demurred at receiving him, but his wife dis- 
cerning that he was a gentleman in spite of his dusty 
appearance said gently, "Have you a mother?" 

"No," said the boy, "my mother is dead." 

"Ah, that 's the trouble," she said to her husband, 
"we are told to care for orphans. Come in, and 
welcome." 

After resting with this good lady a few days, the 
boy continued his journey upon a flat-bottomed boat 
from Wheeling, which slowly floated down the Ohio. 
The river in those days, overhung on either side by 
primeval forest and almost impenetrable canebrakes, 
was filled with game of all sorts. Deer and bear un- 
afraid swam across the river, and bronze flocks of wild 
turkeys sailed slowly overhead. Cincinnati, that most 
populous queen of the West, was only a straggling 
group of log cabins, and Louisville was scarcely settled. 
Where the Green River and the Ohio meet, the boy 
landed and started his march for the interior of 
Kentucky. 

He had relations in Lexington, but he did not make 
himself known to them, for his pride was wounded. 
He wanted to show his father what independence could 
accomplish. He camped at night by beautiful crystal 
streams and shot turkey, smaller birds, and squirrels 
by day, roasting them- by fires made of underbrush 
and dry forest wood. 

His first taste of the real hunter's silent joy was 



William Peyton Duval 13 

when he came upon a pack of wolves devouring the 
carcass of a deer. One big greedy fellow ate more than 
the others, snapping and snarling when they came too 
near, and the boy said to himself, "A prize, that leader 
of the pack, I shall try for him." He loaded his rifle 
and shot him twice while the other wolves ran yelping 
away. Then, he said, a feeling of triumph came over 
him as though he were lord of all that leafy forest. 
But the deer, even when quite near him, he could never 
bring down. They seemed ever running. A whole 
herd had just gone by in a wild scamper and he was 
gazing longingly after them when he heard a voice say, 
"What are you after, Sonny?" 

"Those deer," said the boy; "are they ever still?" 

"Reckon you 're a bit green, sonny; where are you 
from?" 

"Richmond," said the boy. 

"What, not Richmond of my old Virginny?" 

"Yes, I am," said the boy. 

"And how," said the man, "did you git here?" 

"I came down the Ohio and landed at Green River," 
said the boy. 

"All by your lone self?" 

"Yes," said the boy, "I am by myself." 

"Where be you goin'?" said the man. 

"I 'm going to hunt," said the boy. 

"Then," said the backwoodsman, looking at him 
kindly, "come along er me, I '11 make a hunter out of 
you. Me and my wife don't live fur from here. Killed 
anything?" 

"Yes," said the boy, "wild turkeys and squirrels." 

"But," said the man, "can't come it on a deer — you 
must step like a panther on padded feet to do that. 
Nary a twig must n't crackle under yo' feet. Deers is 



14 My Beloved South 

got the quickest ears in the forest. You liave to creep 
up on 'em, and then sometimes they gits away." 

Bill Smithers lived with his wife and baby in a log 
cabin with no chimney, but just a square hole for the 
smoke to escape. While the trees were being girdled 
preparatory to clearing the land, the food consisted of 
fish from the brooks, game from the forests, and luscious 
berries. This generous woodsman was the boy's first 
teacher in hunting and woodcraft, making, my grand- 
father said, all of his boyish dreams come true. The 
forests with giant trees were magnificent, the wide 
prairies, covered with wild flowers, were fragrant blossom- 
ing gardens. The woods were rich in wild strawberries 
and blackberries, for nature in Kentucky was then, as 
now, prodigal of her bounty. 

But he did not stay long with Smithers, finding a 
solitary bachelor called Miller, a famous himter, who 
was glad to have a willing apprentice. Under him he 
became a good shot, and past master of the ways and 
secrets of the wilderness. The buffalo were in Ken- 
tucky then, and had just begun to migrate for safety 
to the West. The boy's first success in big game hunt- 
ing was to kill a bear. He, two brothers, and a dog 
were out together. Seeing the shaggy beast climbing 
a tree, he sent a shot near his heart. Bruin fell to the 
ground and the dog, giving a joyous bark, ran up to 
investigate. The bear, with one last effort, clasped 
the dog round its neck. They died together. My 
grandfather said the two simple-hearted hunters buried 
their friend, crying like children. 

The himters lived far apart. They wanted elbow 
room, and only occasionally came together, when they 
sat for hours silently smoking like Indians. But the 
light of the big fires at night warmed them at last into 



William Peyton Duval 15 

story-telling. The young Virginian, a good listener, 
with his frankness, courage, good-humour and adap- 
tability, soon became a great favourite, especially with 
his host, who loved him like a son. 

There was one event my Aunt Elizabeth said my 
grandfather loved to describe — a dance at the house of 
a famous fiddler. Bob Mosely. The only suit of clothes 
the young man possessed was his leather breeches and 
coat, which were soiled with hunting grease. He 
thought that with a good scouring they might be made 
to serve for the party, so he carried them to a stream, 
washed them, and hung them to dry, while he rested 
himself on the bank of the river. But the sticks upon 
which the clothes were stretched toppled and fell into 
the river, carrying their burden with them, and there 
the young man was left for the remainder of the after- 
noon to fashion, like Adam, a garment of leaves in 
which to go home. 

Old Miller was horrified when he saw his young 
friend's misfortune and heard that he could not attend 
the dance. He said, "You '11 not only go, but you shall 
be the best dressed of all the boys." He then began to 
work day and night and made a soft deerskin hunting 
shirt, fringed on the shoulders, with leggings of the 
same skin fringed from top to bottom. Wearing these 
splendid garments and a raccoon cap with two tails 
floating out behind, he presented a very fine figure 
indeed. All the hunters were garbed in the same sort 
of clothes and the girls wore doeskin dresses. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon when the party 
was at its height, the two Misses Schultz made a stage 
entrance, with red ribbons and tiny looking-glasses 
hung round their necks, which a stray pedlar had given 
them in gratitude for a few days' hospitality. The 



1 6 My Beloved South 

simple people at the party had never seen looking- 
glasses before, and the girls, Sukey and Patty Schultz, 
were such belles that the other girls jealously threatened 
to go home. Young Duval, gifted with tact, explained 
in flattering words the situation to the Misses Schultz, 
telling them that their charms and looking-glasses 
combined would break up the party, and begged them 
to allow him to hang the ribbons and ornaments on 
the wall until the dance ended. When this was done, 
peace was at once restored. 

About this time the young hunter grew dissatisfied 
and restless. His mind began to crave intellectual 
food. A famous woodsman came to him and said: 
"A bunch of us are going West. Kentuck 's too 
crowded. Neighbours are only fourteen miles off and 
I have n't breathing room. Will you join us, Duval?" 
This induced the boy to go through a self-examination. 
He asked himself: "Am I going to remain a hunter all 
my days? No, the woods are for the true woodsman 
who desires no other life. My people have always 
belonged to the world. I must get back to it." 

The question then arose as to what he should do. 
He decided on the profession of law. He felt that if 
he had wasted time in the great forests, he had never- 
theless laid up a store of health, strength, cheerfulness, 
and quickness of vision in observing the human and 
animal species. He knew he had dogged determination 
when he undertook a task. He always said that if a 
man with ordinary capacity worked unswervingly, 
heart and soul, at anything, he could succeed in it. 

He still had his silken purse filled with gold, and he 
could sell his pile of beaver and other skins and the fine 
horse which he had obtained in exchange for furs. 
With this money he calculated to live until he was 



William Peyton Duval 17 

admitted to the Bar. When he spoke to Miller, the 
old man was deeply grieved. He could understand 
but one life, that of the hunter, but he loved the boy 
too well to discourage him. 

The following day the young man rode to Bardstown, 
stopped at a small inn over night, and found a family 
who would take him to board for a dollar and a half a 
week. The next morning he intended riding back to 
Miller's to get his little fortune of five hundred dollars, 
and was waiting on the hotel piazza for his horse to be 
brought round to him when he saw sitting in the parlour 
a vision of loveliness. A young girl was there, fair as 
alabaster, with thick auburn hair, deep blue eyes, tall, 
slender, and dressed all in white. After the sunburnt, 
rosy-cheeked maids of the woods this girl seemed some- 
thing delicate and unreal. He longed to speak to her, 
but did not dare. Then he longed still more, with all 
his clean young blood aflame, to kiss her. "Just 
once," he said, "it will be a memory of bliss to carry 
with me all through life, and if I don't get it I shall 
certainly die of longing." He stepped into the room. 
She was looking dreamily out of the window, when he 
walked up behind her, touched her gently on the shoul- 
der, and she looked up. He stooped and kissed her 
on the mouth, then made a rush for the door, ran across 
the balcony, down the steps, vaulted lightly to his 
saddle, lifted his hat, made her a low bow and dashed 
off madly to the woods. 

When he got to the log cabin he sold his horse and 
walked back to Bardstown, where he settled himself 
and began to study law. He read sixteen and eighteen 
hours out of the twenty-four and sometimes all night 
as well as all day. He found he had so much to study 
besides law. He grew serious and morose with inces- 



i8 My Beloved South 

sant work and the sudden change from outdoor life to 
continual confinement. But he kept doggedly on for 
a year, and then there came a slight interruption, for 
one day while taking a walk he passed on the street the 
only girl he had ever kissed. His heart gave two or 
three quick thumps and for days the little beauty's 
face came obstinately between him and his books, but 
he studied harder than ever and took no more walks. 

One cold rainy evening the young student had gone 
to the bar of the inn and was sitting by the fire when a 
gentleman, tall, distinguished looking and handsomely 
dressed, entered. He wore small-clothes, silver knee- 
buckles, his hair powdered and tied in a queue, and 
neat polished shoes. He asked the young man if his 
name was Duval. The boy, tired and depressed, said 
moodily, "Yes." 

"And do you," said the gentleman, "come from 
Richmond?" 

"I do," said the boy, "but what is that to you?" 

"Nothing, good-night." 

Next day, however, the gentleman, the pink of 
elegance and courtesy, called on the boy. He said he 
was a friend of his father's, that he had heard of the 
struggle he was making, and would take him in his 
office and direct his studies if he would come. Young 
William, apologising for his previous churlishness, 
gratefully accepted the offer, and a little later went to 
live at the house of his friend, who was one of the leading 
lawyers of Kentucky. From that time life went easier 
for him. His reading was properly directed, he joined 
a debating society, was its most brilliant speaker, and 
was soon hailed as a coming genius. 

One evening at a little party he met the auburn- 
haired beauty and was introduced to her as "Miss 



William Peyton Duval 19 

Nancy Hynes." Her mother was a Miss Stuart from 
Scotland who had married a Kentuckian, and it was 
from Scotland she had got her red hair. People in the 
room began to talk, and they left the young couple 
practically alone. William was terribly embarrassed. 
Then he said, " Don't you see how uncomfortable I am? 
Can't you say something, anything to help me out?" 

The girl's dimples all appeared and she said, "What 
do you want me to say?" 

He answered: "Not that you forgive me — for I don't 
want forgiveness. If I had it to do over again, by 
heaven, I would do it, even if I died for it." 

They met frequently at dances at the houses of 
friends, and before the young man was nineteen he was 
engaged to the girl of seventeen. Her mother, a widow, 
objected on the score of their youth, but he told her he 
would marry her daughter, and very soon, if all the 
world rose up in defiance. The mother liked this 
grave, romantic wooer, and said she knew all about him 
and his family, and that he would only have to wait a 
reasonable time. He then studied harder than ever, 
with a prospect of a wife and home before him. 

In the meantime his father, hearing where he was, 
wrote to say he would give him a liberal allowance if 
he would soon go to college. He talked it over with 
his sweetheart and the wise young maiden advised him 
to go, but just as he was starting for the Virginia Uni- 
versity, Nancy's mother died suddenly, leaving her 
with a younger sister, my great-aunt, Polly Hynes, a 
little girl away at a boarding-school. The chivalrous 
lad felt his promised bride needed a protector, so he 
gave up the idea of college, was admitted to the Bar 
that autumn, and married immediately afterwards. 

Fate is kind to some mortals. These married sweet- 



20 My Beloved South 

hearts ever remained lovers. They were poor, for 
Nancy could not touch her small fortune until she came 
of age, and my grandfather had nothing. They lived 
in a little two-roomed log house, and my grandfather 
said, "Everything we had was in half-dozens; a half-a- 
dozen spoons and forks and knives and chairs, a bed, 
a table, a sofa, a dozen books and a little rocking-chair 
and work-table for my girl wife. We were so poor, but 
so happy." 



CHAPTER II 

YOUTHS GLAD SUCCESS 

To the wholly intrepid spirit is given Courage in life; Courage in 
danger; Courage in death. 

THEY had only been married a week when court 
was held at a country town twenty-five miles 
away. It was hard for William Duval to leave his 
pretty bride, and he had no money, but he borrowed a 
little, and a horse from a neighbour and, like young 
Lochinvar, rode gaily away. Fate loves reckless cour- 
age and protects its possessors. The young lawyer had 
no case to plead before the court and no influence to 
get him one, but just as he entered the inn an old man 
in the barroom was struck by a bully. The young 
man promptly knocked the bully down. This secured 
his popularity. The crowd shook hands with the 
plucky stranger and plied him with drinks, which he 
had the judgment to refuse, for he felt the morrow would 
be a momentous day for him. 

The next morning when the court opened, he boldly 
seated himself among the advocates. A man was 
charged with passing counterfeit money. He had 
been out of the range of lawyers and was asked to 
choose one for his defence. Looking around, he 
selected the eager faced lad, who was given until next 
day to prepare his case. As they left the court the 

21 



22 My Beloved South 

accused man gave his counsel one hundred dollars as a 
retaining fee. 

Young Duval spent many hours in anxious prepara- 
tion of his defence and argument. When night came 
he was too excited to speak; in the morning he could 
not eat. He reached the court agitated and unnerved, 
and when he began to speak it was only to flounder and 
stammer. Presently the public prosecutor made a 
cruelly sarcastic remark. There was a laugh in 
court. At that his nerves became taut and steady. 
His voice rang out with a brave challenge. He mar- 
shalled his facts with telling effect and proved his 
client's innocence conclusively. The case ended tri- 
umphantly in the man's acquittal, and young Duval 
was made. His earnestness and eloquence had stirred 
even the lawyers. His youth, his courage, his knowl- 
edge of law were discussed. Other cases were given 
him, and when the week ended he had made seven 
hundred dollars. The night the fees were paid him 
he was like a miser. He locked his bedroom door and 
let the gold trickle through his fingers; he piled it up 
and saw in its glitter a rosy future of comfort for his 
wife and of gratified ambition for himself. 

The next morning before dawn, he mounted the 
borrowed horse and started for Bardstown. His wife 
had prepared a delicious breakfast for him, but he was 
too excited to eat. Like the boy that he was, he wanted 
to surprise her, and he sat down at the table and began 
slowly counting out the money in ten-dollar gold pieces. 
His wife looked on and said, "Whose money is it? 
Have you got to take it to the bank?" 

"It is my money!" said my grandfather, "mine and 
yours! Oh Nancy, come and dance and sing and cry." 
And together they laughed and waltzed round the 



Youth's Glad Success 23 

room, like the children they were, for poverty had gone 
out of the window, and success had come in at the door. 

Later, my grandfather was elected to Congress from 
Kentucky, as he said he would be, and on his return to 
the States was appointed Judge of the Federal Court, 
which office he retained for some years. By this time 
three of his eight children had been added to the family. 
In those days the Floridas were a territory, and the 
Indians being somewhat troublesome a man of courage, 
decision, and heart was wanted for governor. The 
appointment was offered to my grandfather, who 
retained the office for twenty-four years. The young- 
est five children were born in Florida and the last 
pretty little girl was named after that land of flowers. 

The new governor kept open house. All the year 
carriages drove back and forth, and people came and 
went as if it had been a hotel. Christmas and Easter 
were different from other seasons only in more turkeys 
and game, larger cakes, more egg-nog, and greater 
quantities of punch. 

Three of my aunts and my mother were all celebrated 
beauties, my mother inheriting the Scotch hair, a dark 
auburn, and the deep blue eyes of her mother. My 
grandfather was always hospitable to the admirers of 
his daughters. They could spend the day, or even, if 
they felt inclined, several days, but at ten o'clock each 
night old Scipio, the negro butler, was required to see 
that the drawing-room was closed and the piazzas 
cleared. 

Scipio made his appearance dressed in a swallow- 
tailed coat, his hair tied like my grandfather's in a 
queue (a strain of Indian blood had given him straight 
hair), and bearing an enormous waiter, with a large, 
noisily ticking silver watch lying upon it and numerous 



24 My Beloved South 

mint juleps. The suitors were supposed to observe 
the time, drink the juleps, say good-night and go home. 

Life in Florida in those days must have been enchant- 
ing. There were fruit and vegetables all the year 
round, oranges for the picking, peaches and melons in 
great abundance. The Indians constantly brought 
in all kinds of game ; the woods were full of wild orchids 
and myriads of wild flowers, and the pink cranes and 
scarlet flamingoes were quite tame on the banks of the 
little river that flowed at the bottom of the grounds. 

In 1823, Governor Duval rendered signal service to 
the territory of Florida and to the United States 
Government by putting down the conspiracy of Nea- 
mathla, one of the most noted Indians in American 
history. He was the chief of the Mickasookies, a 
fighting tribe of warriors, who had their hands not only 
against the white man, but against the weaker Indian 
as well. They had committed many depredations on 
the frontiers of Georgia and were constantly attacking 
the Seminoles, a peaceful and picturesque tribe, who 
gave the Government no trouble, but sought (unless 
influenced by the Mickasookies) its protection. 

Neamathla was a splendid figure, more than six 
feet in height, with fierce fiery eyes and a face like a 
hawk. He hated white men and proudly called 
Governor Duval "brother," never acknowledging his 
superiority. 

The Indians at this time, chiefly through the gover- 
nor's influence, had signed a treaty to remove to a 
small section of land in the eastern part of Florida and 
to remain there for twenty years, thus leaving the 
remainder of the State free to the white man. Nea- 
mathla fought bitterly against the treaty, but finally 
signed it, saying quite frankly: "If I had enough war- 



Courage in Life 25 

riors, brother, instead of signing the treaty, I would 
wipe every white man from the face of Florida. I say 
this to you, for though you are white, you are a Man. 
Your pale-faced people would n't understand me." 

Thinking it wise to be near the Indians, Governor 
Duval had settled at Tallahassee. The village of 
Neamathla being only three miles away, he often 
rode out to have a pow-wow with him. One day he 
found him surrounded by all his warriors, drinking 
brandy freely. Neamathla began to boast that 
although the red man had made a treaty, the treaty was 
at an end, "broken by the white man, who had not 
delivered the cattle and money promised." 

The Governor replied, "The time for the money and 
cattle has not yet arrived." But the old chief only 
looked sly and continued to drink and threaten. He 
had been cutting tobacco with a long knife, and while 
he was talking he flourished his keen blade not an inch 
away from the Governor's throat, saying the country 
was the red man's, that it should belong to him, and he 
would fight for it until his bones, and the bones of his 
warriors bleached upon its soil. 

Suddenly and unexpectedly the Governor seized him 
by the bosom of his shirt, clenched his fist in his face, 
and said: "You have made your treaty. You shall 
keep it. I am your White Chief sent by your father in 
Washington to see that you do it. If you do not, the 
blood of every Indian in the country will dye the land, 
and his bones will bleach upon its soil." 

The old chief threw himself back with a bitter laugh. 
"Ho, ho, little white brother!" he said, "can't you see 
my joke?" 

My grandfather returned to Tallahassee, and things 
went smoothly for several months. Every day some 



26 My Beloved South 

of the Indians reported themselves at the Governor's 
house, but suddenly their visits ceased, and at mid- 
night of the fourth day after this. Yellow Hair, a young 
brave who loved the White Chief, stole into the house. 
"Governor," he said, "at the risk of my life I 've come 
to tell you that five hundred warriors are holding a 
secret war talk with Neamathla." 

There was no more sleep that night for Governor 
Duval; he saw that he must take a desperate chance. 
There were one hundred white families near, and he 
had no soldiers. Everything depended on himself. 
At dawn he was up, and, mounting a fleet horse, called 
upon the interpreter, De Witt, to follow. 

The man demurred. "Wait, Governor," he said, 
"tintil we can get the militia." 

"No," said my grandfather, "there is not a moment 
to lose, we must ride fast." And they struck for the 
Indian village to what De Witt thought was certain 
death. 

"The chiefs," he said, "are old, discontented, sus- 
picious and exasperated . They intend serious mischief. 

Finally my grandfather said, "Go back, man, and 
leave me to go on alone." 

" No," said De Witt, " I won't leave you to die alone, 
but God! what a foolhardy expedition." 

They rode on in silence, and when they neared the 
village my grandfather said sternly, "Translate word 
for word what I say to you. Only courage can save us 
now." 

There was a great council fire, and Neamathla was 
sitting on a rude throne surrounded by his warriors. 
The Governor rode straight into the circle, while forty 
rifles were cocked and levelled at him. He slowly dis- 
mounted, looked Neamathla fearlessly in the eyes, 



Courage in Life 2^ 

and, with a gesture of contempt, stood waiting. The 
old chief threw up his arm; the guns were lowered. 
The Governor then walked up to Neamathla and 
asked why he was holding a council of war. The old 
chief was silent. 

The White Chief said, "You need not answer. I 
know ; but if a single hair of the head of a white man in 
this country is harmed" — he made a mighty sweeping 
gesture with his arm — "I will hang every chief to the 
trees that surround you. The Great Father in Wash- 
ington holds you in the hollow of his hand. He has 
only to close it and you are dead. I am but one man. 
You may kill me, but the white man is as many as the 
leaves on this oak. Remember your warriors, whose 
bones have made the battlefields white. Remember 
your wives and your children dead in the swamps. 
Another war with the white man, and there will not 
be one Indian left to tell the story to his children." 

His words had effect. They sat still and silent. 
Then he appointed a day for them to meet him in St. 
Mark's and rode forty miles straight ahead to the 
Apalachicolas, a friendly tribe who were at feud with 
the Mickasookies. They immediately sent three hun- 
dred warriors to St. Mark's. He summoned also the 
regular army and the militia, and was then ready for 
Neamathla. Yellow Hair came again in the dead of 
night to tell the Governor that nine towns concerned 
in the conspiracy were disaffected, and from him he 
found out the names of the chiefs in these towTis who 
were popular, but without power. 

On the day of the conference he rode out to meet 
Neamathla, who, although at the head of eight hundred 
Indians, was afraid to venture into the court of St. 
Mark's alone. He thought when he saw the troops 



28 My Beloved South 

and the preparations that he had been betrayed, but 
was reassured when the Governor rode by his side and 
told him when the talk was ended that he could go home 
free. 

Neamathla and the older chiefs blamed the younger 
ones who had led them into conspiracy. "Then," 
said my grandfather, "if you cannot govern your 
braves you must, like the white man, find men who can. 
I depose you, Neamathla, and appoint Little Bear in 
your place." And with great ceremony a broad ribbon 
sewn with beads, from which a large medal of the Capitol 
depended, was hung around the neck of a younger 
chief. 

In this way nine chiefs were deposed and popular 
braves appointed in their place. The Indians were 
delighted; they thought my grandfather a prophet to 
have divined their choice. The new warriors, he was 
confident, would keep an eye on the disaffected, and 
would remain loyal to the Government and to him. 

Neamathla left the country and returned to the 
Creek nation, who made him a chief, but, shorn of his 
great power, he soon died of disappointment. The 
Governor's achievement of defeating alone and unaided 
a conspiracy which would have brought about a terrible 
massacre, was a valiant and heroic act. In later years 
with no military escort, he was able to remove, through 
their confidence in him, all the Indians from Florida 
to the Indian Territory — ^thus saving the Government 
at Washington great trouble and expense. 

When the question of the Indians was settled, he 
devoted himself to the development of the State. 
His children were being educated in Kentucky. The 
girls went to the Convent of Nazareth in Bardstown, 
and the boys to St. Joseph's, the college of the Jesuits 



Courage in Life 29 

which gave shelter to Louis Philippe when he was a 
refugee in America, and where later Jefferson Davis 
was a hard-working student. 

My uncle Burr, the eldest son, was the flower of my 
grandfather's flock, tall, with a splendid figure, bright 
blue eyes, light waving hair, a dazzling smile, a speak- 
ing voice of golden sweetness, a dashing rider, and like 
his father a man of extraordinary courage, he sounds 
a perfect hero of romance. As a child I was ever 
eager for stories about him. When he graduated from 
college, young, gallant, intrepid, inheriting from his 
father the pioneer spirit, Texas, with a handful of 
brave men, was fighting for her liberty against the 
Mexicans, and Burr Duval raised in Kentucky a com- 
pany of young men like himself, college bred and the sons 
of gentlemen. Among them was the lover of my great- 
aunt Polly Hynes, — then a young lady who made her 
home with my grandfather — and my uncle John Duval, 
a boy of eighteen. This gallant company was called 
the "Kentucky Mustangs," and Burr Duval was their 
captain. They offered themselves for service to Texas, 
and Colonel Fannin asked them to join his army. 

They had not been long in the State when in a battle 
between Fannin's army and the Mexicans they surren- 
dered to General Urrea, who agreed to treat them as 
prisoners of war, but at Goliad, on Palm Sunday, 1836, 
they with other companies, about four hundred and 
forty-th^ee men in the very flower of their youth, were 
marched out and traitorously drawn up in line and 
shot. A few escaped, my uncle John, being at the end 
of the line and fleet of foot, among them. 

When the scourge of yellow fever fifteen years later 
visited Florida, John had returned from Texas, brown, 
thin, and still saddened from the loss of his gallant 



30 My Beloved South 

young soldier brother, and another and slighter grief 
which ever pursued him, the necessity of choking to 
death a little dog that he had taken to Texas from 
Kentucky. With Mexicans in full pursuit, the dog was 
about to bark, and the only way to save his own life 
was to strangle his one faithful friend. It was a 
miserable little tragedy, and when quite an old man his 
face would still grow melancholy when he spoke of it. 

After the death of her first-born beautiful son even 
my grandfather, they said, could rarely make my 
grandmother smile, and she was one of the first to die 
of yellow fever, for she made no effort to live. Aunt 
Polly, who was a woman of strong character and affec- 
tions, had closed the room where she bade her lover 
good-bye forever, and she allowed no one to enter it 
but herself. The silver candlesticks had grown tar- 
nished, the orange blossoms were brittle in the vase, 
the dust, like a grey pall, covered every object. But 
she spent hours alone there every day. 

The loss of my grandmother was a terrible blow to my 
grandfather, and to the end of his life he remained 
inconsolable. They had been like two happy birds in 
the springtime. He teased her, and she would laugh 
and pull his ears and play with him as if they were still 
boy and girl. After her death he was restless and 
miserable, having lost interest in all things. With 
aunt Polly and her grief, it was a depressed and changed 
household. My uncle John, in spite of the terrible 
tragedy he had lived through, wanted to go back again 
to Texas. He had lost his heart to that vast country, 
so full of excitement and of seething vivid life, and my 
grandfather, to seek change from his poignant grief, 
consented to take his remaining family and go with, 
him. They settled first in Galveston where my aunt, 



Courage in Death 31 

Elizabeth Beall, who was a very beautiful young widow, 
was at the head of the house. His children gathered 
around him, he began to get back his cheerfulness 
again, to take an interest in politics and the rapid 
development of the great "Lone Star State." My 
father, who had held the office of Supreme Judge of the 
State of Arkansas, resigned and came to Texas, where 
he married my mother and went with her to live at 
Austin. 

Fate surely cheated me out of a joy in not knowing my 
grandfather. I have always felt that we were conge- 
nial spirits. He was the soul of hospitality, affection- 
ate, generous, brave, witty, and light-hearted, even in 
the face of death. His love of tradition led him to wear 
a queue. In his youth it was tied with a black ribbon, 
but later in life, when considered too aristocratic and 
dandified, it was plaited and tucked up out of sight 
among his curls with a hair-pin. Doctor Blake after 
his death cut off the queue and sent it to my aunt, his 
eldest daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Beall. He was not 
an old man when he died in Washington from an attack 
of gout and pneumonia. He loved life, and he had not 
an enemy in the world. He was vitally interested in 
Texas, that splendid new country of his later years. 
He had many friends, and his children adored him, not 
with the theoretical love of children for their parents, 
which can brook absence, but with the real companion- 
able love, desiring nothing so much as constant, affec- 
tionate intercourse and intimate interchange of thought. 
Aunt Lizzie told me that his daughters, my mother, 
my aunt Mary, my aunt Florida and herself were 
counting the days of his return from Washington, when 
they received a letter from old Doctor Blake announcing 
his death. 



32 My Beloved South 

The Governor's gout was very bad, [he wrote] and 
weakened him a good deal, but I had hopes of pulling him 
through until the 20th, when he seemed to grow worse. 
All the time he had been astonishingly cheerful, and full of 
amusing stories. His friends (he had too much company 
I thought) came in shoals from the capitol and elsewhere 
to keep him company, and his spirits never flagged. I 
stayed late the night of the 20th. When I came in he was 
reading his Bible — which I send you — and laying it aside, 
he said, "Blake, there 's some mighty good reading in that 
book. It has helped me over devilishly rough roads, and 
while maybe I haven't exactly lived 'a sober, righteous 
and godly life, ' I can honestly say I 've never questioned. 
I 've always been certain of Him. How can anybody 
doubt who reads intelligently His Sermon on the Mount?" 
I begged him to sleep and try and conserve his strength. 
Finally he dozed off, saying, "Yes, that wonderful Naza- 
rene planted seed in my heart; if it hasn't made a good 
harvest, it is n't His fault. But, Blake, I really prefer not 
to die. This is a pretty good world when all 's said and 
done, don't you think so?" I stayed quite two hours while 
he slept, and I came again very early in the morning. I 
could see that the Governor was suffering, for he looked 
terribly ill. I said, "How are you?" as cheerfully as I 
could. "Blake," he said, with his ever-ready joke, "I am 
about to pass in my checks." "I hope not. Governor," I 
answered. "Yes, I am," he said smiling a weak smile, 
"and it 's just as well, for there are three old widows in 
this hotel, all of them desperately in love with me. If I 
got well I 'd have to marry one of them, and if I did the 
other too would die of broken hearts, so it 's just as well 
I 'm going." And with this he turned his head, still smiling, 
and a moment later he was dead. And the world holds 
one less natural, generous, unaffected, gallant and witty 
gentleman. The Governor's death is no less a grief to me 
than it is to you. Pray permit me to convey to you my 
sincere sympathy. . . . 



Courage in Death 33 

A little painted parchment fan, brought by one of 
the Duval brothers from Rouen, with the family tree, 
a silver christening dish, and a few other heirlooms, is 
always in some way to me associated with my grand- 
father's death. It was small, with ivory sticks, inlaid 
with a pattern of gold. On it a gentleman in satin 
small-clothes and a powdered wig danced the minuet 
with a lady in pointed bodice, a flowered brocaded 
petticoat, red high-heeled slippers, and her hair dressed a 
la Marie Antoinette. A little trail of roses finished the 
fan at top and bottom, and on the other side a pictur- 
esque shepherd and two beribboned lambs disported 
themselves on green, downy hillocks. The fan was 
said to have been used, on her way to the guillotine, 
by an ancestress of my grandfather, a certain Lucienne 
Duval. She, a devoted loyalist, was condemned as an 
extra indignity to ride publicly with her lover on the 
tumbril to their place of execution. All Paris, even 
the scum of the French Revolution, knew of the affair, 
for the lady had none of the hypocrite in her, so little 
that she gave no excuse for her conduct, and indeed 
always spoke of her husband as a great gentleman 
without fault. 

"Perhaps," she said, "he is too perfect; that, maybe, 
is why I love de Tocqueville. God knows he has 
enough faults for two, but he is, and ever has been, 
the one man on earth for me." 

The day of the execution these two who had sinned 
much, but loved much, went bravely to their death, 
he taking snuff from his enamelled box, and talking as 
gaily as if going to a May Day dance at Petit Trianon, 
she standing erect and waving defiance with that gay 
and airy trifle, her little painted fan. When the tum- 
bril stopped de Tocqueville said, "For the first time 



34 My Beloved South 

in my life I shall reverse etiquette. Madame, I will 
precede you." 

"No," she said with a tender smile, "Philippe, you 
have often kept me waiting; I shall go first and be 
waiting for you still." And then before all the jeering 
multitude he took her in his arms and kissed her on the 
eyes and on the mouth, saying, " I 've always loved you, 
always." And she, looking into his eyes, asked, for 
she had been jealous, "And loved me faithfully?" He 
whispered back quite humbly, "Before God, dear 
woman, as faithfully as you have loved me!" 

Then, deaf to the insults of the crowd about her, 
who called out, "Look at the painted cocotte, brazen 
to the last!" she walked erect to the guillotine, still 
holding the little fan and whispering " Toujour s fidele, 
toujour s^ In a moment the basket received her head. 
When de Tocqueville stepped from the tumbril, a man 
suddenly old, he had to be supported to his execution, 
for he could not walk. The mob laughed with delight 
and roared with triumph, " Voyez, voyez, Idche, Idchef" 
They did not see that he had already died with his 
brave lady, and that for once they would execute a 
corpse. 

The mistress of a lackey in the Duval household 
was said to have picked up the fan and returned it to 
the family. 

May all the descendants of this poor lady meet death 
as bravely as she. Certainly my grandfather did, and 
that is why Lucienne's fan makes me think of him. 
Death finds so many who fear his grim and affrighting 
presence that he must love those and say a word in 
their favour, who in the very last moment turn to him 
with a brave face, and meet him with a gay and unex- 
pected smile. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CONQUERING PIONEER 

Courage comes straight from God, 

With it He has created saints, martyrs, 

Heroes, soldiers, 

Lent them to the world. 

And taken them to Himself again. 

THE best blood of America is in Texas, the hardy- 
blood of the conquering pioneer. Even to-day, by 
instinct, inheritance, and tradition, the men of Texas 
are still pioneers, for they must be ever on the alert 
to fight nature as she tries their prowess in droughts, 
floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, but the golden possi- 
bilities in that vast land — oil and coal to-day, topaz 
and turquoise to-morrow, gold and silver in the future 
— urge them on to hope and fresh endeavour. 

The men who first established the Republic had force 
enough to wrest the land from the Indian, and after- 
wards from the Mexican. They were strong, they 
fought to conquer or to die. And not only were there 
pioneer men, but splendid pioneer women as well. 
How wise is Nature in aptly supplying her needs! 
After the Civil War all the babies born in the South 
were boys. It was impossible for mothers who longed 
for them, to produce girls, and when women were 
needed with intrepid souls, great powers of endurance, 
and vigorous health to share a life of difficulty and 

35 



36 My Beloved South 

danger with daring men, Nature produced them. 
Medea, when asked, "Country, husband, children are 
all gone, what remains?" answered, "Medea remains." 
There were many Medeas in Texas. When husband 
and children were killed by the Indians, and later by 
the Mexicans, houses destroyed by fire, cattle and horses 
confiscated, still these hardy women lived on to a brave 
old age. 

Mrs. Long, whose husband of her youth was assas- 
sinated by the Mexicans, spent a long life in trying to 
avenge his death. It needs an iron constitution and 
rugged health, to survive the memory of bloody trage- 
dies, and life in those days was melodramatic in its 
intensity. If the occurrences of a day or a week of 
that time were now put on the stage, it would give us, 
sitting in our seats in a theatre, fierce and blood- 
curdling thrills. 

The crest of that wave of supreme daring — and his- 
tory, ancient or modem, contains no more sublime dis- 
play of courage — was the defence of the Alamo. Not 
one man survived. They died like their leaders, 
Travis, Crockett, Bowie and Bonham, fighting until 
death loosened the grip of the smoking weapons from 
their brave hands. There is something glorious and 
complete in a bloody struggle where every man dies. 
On the old monument of the Alamo was the inscription : 
"Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but the 
Alamo had none." None was needed. It was better 
for that superhumanly gallant band to die together. 
They have made an imperishable page of glory in 
history, and left a proud heritage of unconquerable 
courage for the state to hand down to her sons. 

But the battle of San Jacinto, when the Texans, 
concealed behind a gradually sloping hill, descended 



The Conquering Pioneer 37 

unawares upon the Mexicans with the terrible cry from 
every man: "Remember Goliad! Remember the 
Alamo ! Goliad ! The Alamo ! " avenged many deaths. 
And in such furious, revengeful haste were the soldiers 
that, coming to close quarters with the Mexicans they 
clubbed their muskets, and fought hand to hand with 
bayonets and knife. "Goliad! Goliad!" which in 
hoarse, fierce cries echoed over the battlefield, meant 
death to the Mexican army, for, cruel memories crowd- 
ing upon them, the men fought like savages. The 
artillerymen ordered: "Guns to the front! Guns to 
the front! God! This for the Alamo!" and a steady 
stream of fire poured forth on the Mexicans. The men 
at the guns were blackened with powder; the cannon 
smoked and sent out long tongues of flame. 

"Fire, fire," cried one, "in God's name, fire!" 

"In the name of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett, fire, 
men, fire!" 

The guns roared like wakeful hyenas, the band of 
drum and fife stridently played, "Will you come to 
the bower?" The Mexicans were running, rushing, 
fleeing, agonised and appalled from "The Bower." 

The battle lasted only half an hour, but six hundred 
and thirty Mexicans were dead on the fertile plain, 
more than two hundred were wounded, and more than 
seven hundred were prisoners. Arms, munition, mules, 
horses, money in gold and silver, were taken as loot 
from the Mexicans, and of the brave little army of 
seven hundred and forty-three Texans there were only 
six killed and twenty-five woimded. Goliad and the 
Alamo were avenged. 

Santa Anna when captured was generously treated 
as a prisoner of war. If women, the mothers and 
wives of the men slain at the massacre of Goliad and 



38 My Yeloved South 

shot at the Alamo, had taken him prisoner he would 
have met instant death, which he deserved, but he 
lived to again betray in 1843 the Texan troops at Nier, 
when Fisher's men, surrendering under a written pro- 
mise to be accorded treatment as prisoners of war, were 
instantly tied together in pairs, and driven like cattle 
towards the city of Mexico. 

In the early dawn of the following day, led by a 
brave Scotchman, Captain Ewan Cameron, many of 
them escaped. The remaining number who could not 
get away were commanded by Santa Anna to be drawn 
up in a line and shot, but the order was modified to the 
drawing of black beans. The man, who, blindfolded, 
drew the fatal colour was shot. Seventeen men in 
this way were executed, and those who drew white 
beans had better have died than lived, so cruelly did 
they suffer. But every day brought nearer to 
the undaunted pioneers of Texas the hope of freedom 
and independence. Men may have been many 
things in that struggling republic, filibusters, outlaws, 
adventurers, gamblers, pirates, but I never heard of a 
coward. 

We had the honour of sharing with Louisiana the 
picturesque gentleman pirate Lafitte, who was said by 
his enemies to make love or to scuttle a ship with 
equal success, and by his friends to be a seigneur with 
letters of marque from the French government. He 
was certainly, to put it politely, a violator of the 
revenue, and Governor Claybourne had put a price 
upon his head, when, at an opportune moment for him, 
General Jackson and his army arrived in New Orleans. 
With the ready assurance of the bold adventurer, 
Lafitte offered his services and that of an armed com- 
pany for the defence of the state, and though General 



The Conquering Pioneer 39 

Jackson had denounced "robbers, pirates, and hellish 
bandits," he entered the army, was commended for 
bravery, gained a full and free pardon by the govern- 
ment, and left Louisiana rehabilitated, only to start 
privateering in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of 
Galveston. In an incredibly short space of time he 
had gathered more than a thousand lawless adventur- 
ers about him. Finally a Government vessel was 
robbed of some thousands in gold. After that he 
disappeared and was supposed to have sailed for South 
America. 

La Salle, that brave and intrepid discoverer, having 
claimed and named Louisiana for Louis XIV, sailed for 
Texas, landed at Matagorda Bay, explored the Lavaca 
River, and built Fort St. Louis. He called it "The St. 
Louis of Sorrow," and so it proved for him. It is a 
pity that its historic name has been changed to Dimmit's 
Point. A leader of men can never escape the destroy- 
ing jealousy of those whom he dominates. They 
admire him. They fear him. They envy him to the 
point of hatred. La Salle escaped the dangers of 
the explorer by land and sea only to die by the hand 
of an assassin, one of his own men, on the Neches 
River. 

There was courage and daring and carelessness of 
life in Texas ; not only in those early days, but even as a 
child I myself remember the old disregard of danger 
which prevailed in Texas. There is a great deal in 
atmosphere. When a man lives in a country where 
cowardice is not tolerated, although he may quake 
inwardly he would never dare to show the white feather. 
On a Saturday night if a frontiersman had drunk enough 
liquid "hell-fire," he would ride into the town yelling 
like a Comanche Indian, the reins of his horse thrown 



40 My Beloved South 

over his arm or held in his teeth, and both hands occu- 
pied in alternately firing off pistols, one perhaps pointed 
upward to the heavens, the other downward to the 
earth, or by misadventure hitting a human being. My 
youngest brother, Ridge, standing on the side-walk, 
enjoying one of these all too realistic spectacular per- 
formances, was shot through the foot. He was about 
fifteen years old and we were the greatest friends, then 
and always. After a few days I was allowed as a great 
privilege to see the little greyish hole in his instep. I 
don't think he minded it much; with a bundle of news- 
papers and a pile of books he was always oblivious to 
the world. 

When I grew up and married, during my visits to 
Texas my brother Ridge always spent a part of every 
day with me and he had such a restful, comfortable, 
sensible, original way of visiting. He wanted to see me, 
but having nothing in particular to say, he said nothing. 
Arriving with a dozen newspapers under one arm and 
several books under the other, he gave me a brief but 
affectionate greeting, and, sitting down, he read steadily 
for two hours, got up, patted me on the head or shoulder, 
and said, "Good-bye, Betts Swizzlegigs, see you to- 
morrow." And off he would go; but he always saw 
me on the morrow. For, in the whole of his life, he 
never broke the slightest promise, or told a little or a 
big lie. 

When he talked, which he did amazingly well, it was 
to say something worth while, for he had a perfectly 
astounding memory. It was like a moving picture 
show, and seemed to have literally photographed every 
event, every book, and every poem that he had ever 
read. He was very fond of some little verses by Rollin 
Ridge, a talented Cherokee Indian: 



The Conquering Pioneer 41 

I love thee as the soaring bird 

The bright blue morning when he sings, 

With circling, circling melody. 

And Heaven's sweet sunlight on his wings. 

I love thee as the billows love 

In tropic lands the pearly shore; 

They come and go — they come and go, 

With answering kisses evermore. 

I love thee as the mariner 
Far driven o'er the stormy sea 
The bright and shining silver star 
Which tells him where his home may be. 
I love thee thus and ever shall ; 
Thine eyes their bright and glorious light 
Shine in my soul for evermore 
Illumining its darkest night. 

and he always repeated again the lines, 

"With circling, circling melody 
And Heaven's sweet sunlight on his wings." 

and I hope in that other and more beautiful country 
where he has gone, "Heaven's sweet sunlight" is 
shining upon him. 

As a little girl, I had a great desire to be brave, but, 
like the burglar described to me by F. C. Froest, the 
able superintendent of police in London, who had 
three terrors — an old-fashioned iron bar fastened across 
a door, a little shrill barking dog, and an old maid who 
always sleeps with one eye open, — there were three 
things, which struck terror to my soul. These were 
the drunken yells of the galloping outlaws, the old 
Voodoo negro witch living near us, who was said to make 
people die by putting a spell on them ; and the bellowing 



42 My Beloved South 

of a bull, which for a long time I believed to be the 
devil roaring aloud for bad children whom he was seek- 
ing to devour. This fable had been told me by a little 
negro girl on the place, and had sunk deep into my well 
of credulity, where even yet the waters have not been 
dried to dust by the world's disillusionment. 

Maum Phyllis, the Voodoo witch, had been brought 
to Texas from South Carolina by my uncle Marcellus 
Duval, and my father always said she was the last 
slave who had been born in Africa, She was so black 
that even her lips were a blue-black colour; her eyes 
were large and rolling; she never smiled and seldom 
spoke. In her ears she wore big hoops of gold, and a 
snow-white head handkerchief instead of the gay plaid 
turban always worn by other negro women. The 
contrast of her stern black face and the white above it 
was startling. There was no scandal, no secret, no 
small incident in any house in town which was unknown 
to her, and even white women were not above buying 
her love philtres. One of her peculiar talismans, 
composed of a bat's wing, a rabbit'a foot, some hemp 
from the rope which had hanged a murderer, and drops 
of milk from the breasts of a mother and daughter, each 
nursing a baby of the same age, was supposed to bring 
unwilling lovers to the most forbidding of woman-kind. 
In the South, where women married very young, 
it was not an unusual thing for the mother's youngest 
child to be of the same age as her daughter's firstborn. 

Mammy, although a very religious and ardent Metho- 
dist, was a firm believer in Voodooism, charms, amulets, 
the evil eye, "sperrits" and all the rest of it, I cannot 
even now disabuse my mind of superstition and I know, 
"de cunjhe book "contains many warnings and shud- 
dering peeps into the future. 



The Conquering Pioneer 43 

"De cunjhe book say dat he prowl by night, 
En' de cunjhe-book ought to know; 

Deh 's a chance dat he 's neah when de dew gleam bright 
En de ol' bak lawg buhn low — 

Deh 's a chance det he 's neah when de stars wink weak, 
En' de tallow cup buhn blue; 
En' doan yo' dahe to speak 
When de ol' flo' creak — 
It 's de 

Voodoo Bogey-Boo! 

"He 's de awfullist thing, de cunjhe books say, 
(Wuss den de uddeh bogy-boos) 
En' de' ain't no chahm det kin keep him away — 
He jes' come aroun' when he choose. 
Deh 's snake-skin, en' bat-wing, en' rabbit-foot, 
Well, its mighty li'l good dey '11 do, 
Foh de cunjhe-book tell 
It 's hahd to put a spell. 
On de 

Voodoo Bogey-Boo! 

"Sum say det he gallop on an ol' blac' cat 
Roun' de rim ob de big full moon, 
Sum say det he cum in de shape of a bat 
Fum his home in de swamp lagoon, 
En' gran'mammy tell dat he 's always neah 
When ebeh deh 's a grabe dug new. 
En' she say if yo' heah 
A ringin' in yo' eah 
It 's de 

Voodoo Bogey-Boo! 

" Lemme tell yo', I'il boy, you betteh keep still 
De dawg 's at de do' peepin' fru' 
En' eben de cricket in de damp do'sill 
Am stoppin' to listen too — 



44 My Beloved South 

De room am still en' de fiah am daid 
Deh 's sumfin a cummin' fob yo' 
Jes' yo' jump right in baid 
En' kibbeh up yo' haid, 
It 's de 

Voodoo Bogey-Boo!" 

Voodooism is now a thing of the past, but all the 
world knows that a rabbit's foot which has danced on 
a tombstone in a graveyard will bring extraordinary good 
luck. I have never been fortunate enough to possess 
one. My mascot of these days is a bracelet made from 
the hairs of an elephant's tail, an ornament guaranteed 
to bring at least some good fortune. It is lucky in 
the first place to get the bracelet at all, for not every 
elephant has hair on his tail, and to have the black 
spikes necessary to bend like tiny whalebones into a 
circle, the elephant must have been free, a dweller in 
forests, a monarch of all he siu-veyed, and a leader in 
the elephant world. He must have lifted up his trunk 
and deeply trumpeted when he heard the lion's loud 
roar in the jungle; he must have been wise and more 
than a century old, for thin weak hairs cannot appease 
an angry fate. My Helen gave me a tiger's whisker; 
it was neatly curled up and enclosed in a little sapphire 
studded gold heart, and attached to a bracelet, but a 
fair-haired German waiter stole it from me two years 
ago in New York. I daresay by this time he is pro- 
prietor of a prosperous hotel and all the luck intended 
for me has been transferred to him. 

One little piece of good fortune that I had was being 
bom in Texas, that great, wide, cheerful, courageous 
territory, with the most picturesque history of all the 
states and a distinct individuality of its own, inheriting 
as it has something of aloofness and independence from 



The Conquering Pioneer 45 

the old Republic. During her long struggle with 
Mexico, England and France, for their own reasons, 
had both shown great interest in the future of Texas, 
but without help she had fought bravely on, overcom- 
ing with bleeding steps defeat and disaster, until at 
length Mexico was obliged to offer her terms of peace. 
This brought the United States to a realisation of her 
position and importance. Goethe said "Thought 
expands and weakens the mind; action contracts and 
strengthens it " ; certainly these men of action know how 
to wait. Patience has won more battles than bravery, 
for it means unending, sustained courage. 

The most thrilling thing I ever heard Pamell say in 
his even steady voice was, " I can always bide my time." 
These pioneer statesmen bided their time. Quietly 
resting between Mexico and the United States they 
calmly compared the advantages of a republic, or a 
state, and delicately weighed in the scales all that would 
be to their own advantage. Each of the other states 
had asked to be admitted to the Union, but Texas 
proudly waited, and when she received her card of 
invitation said, "Yes, I am flattered at your polite 
invitation, but I must enter the Union on my own 
terms." And if she wishes it to-morrow, she can be 
divided into four States and send twelve men to the 
Senate; but this will never be, for she is proud of her 
stupendous size, of her unique position and, above all, 
of being the "Lone Star State." 

When the United States agreed in 1846 to her inde- 
pendent terms, at the first faint streak of dawn cannons 
boomed to assemble together the patriots and pioneers 
who had fought for her liberty in the past and would 
guard it jealously in the future. The sunrise was 
magnificent, and amidst a profound silence the honoured. 



46 My Beloved South 

flag with its single star was lowered and furled, and a 
flag with stars hoisted and unfurled. The President 
of the late RepubHc said with deep feeling: "The final 
act in the great drama is finished, the Republic of 
Texas is dead. The State of Texas lives." There 
was a wild shout, and Texas was enrolled in the Union. 
When the Legislature assembled, the state constitu- 
tion, framed by just and honest men, showed that 
sagacity and wisdom ruled her counsels. Much of 
the Common Law in England was used and some of 
the laws improved upon. All property owned by the 
husband or wife at the time of marriage and all acquired 
afterwards remained the separate property of each, 
and all property acquired during marriage was common 
property. Offences against the persons of slaves were 
punished in the same way as those committed against 
white people. The homestead was, and still is, exempt 
from debt. Public free schools were supported by 
taxation; and a sum of money was voted for the main- 
tenance of the Texas rangers, a small army necessary 
to the State in the quick capture and punishment of 
marauding outlaws and "Hellish bandits." My father 
often commented upon the wisdom of the constitution 
of the State. He was himself the author of PaschaVs 
Digest of the Laws oj Texas. Martin Lyttleton, that 
brilliant lawyer and fine orator, told me it was the first 
law book he had ever read, and although he has now 
attained prominence in the Congressional life of Wash- 
ington, he never forgets Texas and his love for that 
great State. 



CHAPTER IV 

SAM HOUSTON 

An opal-hearted country, 

A wilful, lavish land; 
All you who have not loved her, 

You will not understand 
Though earth holds many splendours, 

Wherever I may die, 
I know to what brown country 

My homing thoughts will fly. 

Dorothea Mackeller. 

BEFORE the war, society in Austin must have been 
very varied and interesting. General Sam Hous- 
ton was governor of the State. My mother did not 
Hke him, holding him responsible for the massacre of 
Goliad where my Uncle Burr Duval had been shot; 
but from this history exonerates him. He came to 
Texas in the first instance, like many another man, to 
mend a broken heart, and for a time eschewed the 
society of the white man and above all the white woman. 
Living entirely with the Indians, he learned their 
language, adopted their costume, and to the end of his 
life retained a certain bold picturesqueness in his dress. 
When Governor of the State, he wore a soft silk shirt, 
a flowing red necktie, a leopard-skin vest, coat and 
trousers of brown camel's hair, a wide sombrero of grey 
felt embroidered in silver, and a rich-coloured Mexican 
serape. Some of these serapes woven by the Indians 

47 



48 My Beloved South 

are of great value; they are made on a fine frame not 
unlike the manner of weaving an Eastern rug, and are 
splendid in colouring and as pliable and soft as an 
Indian shawl. Age only improves them; with care 
they last for generations and are with the Mexicans 
valued heirlooms. Governor Houston loved popular- 
ity and was always sending my mother, through my 
father, some small carved object. Lrke Madame de 
Stael he required constant occupation for his hands; 
she played with a twig or a flower, he was always 
whittling, and he was rarely seen without a knife and a 
piece of soft wood which he transformed into stars, 
hearts, diamonds, and Noah's Ark people and animals. 
Eventually my mother softened towards him, for he 
and my father were always friends. In a quarrel 
which he had with a public man, my father was trying 
to mend matters when Governor Houston said: "You 
are right. Judge, I must n't be too hard on Jones ; he 
has every quality of the dog except his fidelity." 

The romance of his life was not unlike that of Claude 
Melnotte, but without the happy ending which romance 
so easily, but life rarely, gives. He was a man of great 
ability and when very young was elected governor of 
Tennessee. During his term of office he fell ardently 
in love with a beautiful and ambitious girl. The 
wooing was not without difficulty as he had a rival, a 
young man, undesirable and undistinguished, who 
scarcely entered into his big busy mind. The girl he 
loved lived in an adjoining town, and the courtship 
was mainly through letters, therefore he had not the 
opportunity of properly studying her character. As 
was the fashion of the time they were married at night, 
in a candle-lighted, flower-wreathed church. There 
was a big wedding, for everybody wanted to see the 



Sam Houston 49 

handsome young couple, and to congratulate the 
Governor, but at last, at the end of the festivities, he 
sought the beautiful bride. All shimmer of satin and 
glimmer of pearl, she awaited him, in the rose-and- 
white bridal chamber. 

He went quickly towards her, speechless with emo- 
tion, and tenderly gathered her in his arms. " Don't," 
she said, pushing him away, "you will crush my veil." 
Her voice struck coldly upon his quickened emotions, 
but he was repelled only for a second. He was too 
happy to take warning, and he unfastened her veil, 
laid it reverently on the sofa, and softly lifted her face 
to kiss her. She drew back with a look almost of dis- 
like, and said, "Please, please, not now." He thought 
it was maidenly modesty and said: "I have n't thanked 
you yet for marrying me, but I do. See, I am humble ; 
I am on my knees, my darling, to thank you," and he 
knelt and covered her hands with kisses. 

Another, softer woman, not loving him, would have 
done it then, and laying her hand upon his head would 
have thanked God for this adoring heart, but her own 
was of ice. She said, somewhat sharply: "Do get up 
and don't be foolish ; I don't want you to thank me for 
marrying the Governor of Tennessee." He said very 
gently, "You have married your lover, Madame." 

"I don't want a lover," she said, coldly, "if I had 
wished to give myself up to love, — a thing I don't 
believe in, — I would have married S.," naming his 
rival. 

"Did you," said her husband fiercely, "love him?" 

"No," she said, "but I might have loved him, if you 
had not been a man of successful ambition. I have 
married, as I said before, the Governor of Tennessee." 

"Perhaps," said he with a dangerous light in his 



50 My Beloved South 

eyes, "you do not love this gentleman — this paltry 
Governor " 

She said, "Love is not necessary in an ambitious 
marriage. I am the Governor's wife. I am to sit at 
the head of his table, to receive his friends, to share 
his triumphs " 

"And," he cried with a great burst of passion, "to 
starve his heart and leave it empty! To break it in 
the end, and to make ambition his curse. Even now," 
he added bitterly, "my ambition is dead. You have 
killed all my hopes, and I suffer the torments of the 
damned, for I wanted you and I loved you, — my God, 
how I loved you!" 

She answered calmly: "I thought men placed ambi- 
tion before a woman. I am willing for you to do that. 
You are the Governor of . . . " 

"By heaven, Madame," he said harshly, "there is 
no such person." 

And with that, he strode to the writing-table, wrote 
his resignation to the State, threw it at her feet, picked 
up his hat, and said: 

"I married you for love, the purest, the truest, the 
most reverently adoring that man ever gave to woman. 
You married me without love. I scorn a woman's 
body without her soul. We are as far asunder as the 
poles. We part here, now and forever." 

He closed the door and went out into the darkness 
of the stormy night — his tragic wedding night — and 
they never met again. 

He sought forgetfulness among the Indians, and 
was only roused from lethargy by the desperate efforts 
of the struggling Republic of Texas towards liberty. 
When he became General of the army, his wife, at last 
loving him deeply, should, according to romance, have 



Sam Houston 51 

travelled thousands of miles and appeared, travel- 
stained, softened and repentant, to sue for his forgive- 
ness; but in reality they were divorced. Each married 
again, and they never met after the fatal night of their 
parting. 

Texas must have held more than her share of thrilling 
romance at this period. Men made love with impulsive 
ardour, for the rapid uncertainty of life brings greedi- 
ness for all it holds. During the war, one day's court- 
ship served for marriage, "Love to-night and death 
to-morrow," was the soldier's motto. 

Among the first settlers of Texas a number of repre- 
sentatives of old Southern families had established 
themselves in Austin. James Raymond had helped 
to frame the constitution of the State and was a banker ; 
the Flournoys (what pity to anglicise the aristocratic 
name of Fleur Noire!), the Lubbocks, the Wauls 
(Waul's confederate Texas brigade was later to become 
a synonym in the army for undaunted courage); — 
the Hancocks, the Duvals, the Peases — Elisha Pease, 
afterwards governor, although bom in the North and 
a Union man, never lost the affection or confidence of 
the people — these were among the most distinguished 
of the early settlers. Then there were the Throck- 
mortons, the Wests, the Burlesons, the Steiners, the 
Haynes, and the Wigfalls. Louis Wigfall had been 
sent from Texas to the United States Senate. With 
uncompromising Southern proclivities, he became in 
1 86 1 one of the leaders of Secession, and was a fiery, 
vehement, passionate speaker, earning for himself the 
sobriquet of "the stormy petrel," 

Mrs. Chesnut, in her Diary from Dixie, 1860-65, 
frequently mentions the Wigfalls. "I sent Mrs. 
Wigfall a telegram — 'Where shrieks the wild seamew?' 



52 My Beloved South 

She answered, 'Seamew at the Spotswood Hotel will 
shriek soon. I will remain here.' " And of the bom- 
bardment of Fort Sumter, she says, "Wigfall was with 
them on Marius' Island when they saw the fire in the 
fort. He jumped into a little boat and, with his 
handkerchief, as a white flag, rode over. ... As far 
as I can see, the fort surrendered to Wigfall. It is all 
confusion." And at Richmond in 1861 she says: 
"Heavens! He manoeuvred until I was weary for 
their sakes. Poor fellows, it was a hot afternoon in 
August and the thermometer in the nineties. President 
Davis uncovered to speak. Wigfall kept his hat on. 
Is that military?" After the war Louis Wigfall lived 
for a time in England, but eventually returned to the 
United States. 

Matthias Ward, another Senator from Texas in 
i860, was very popular. He had a great sense of 
humour and enjoyed a story against himself. His 
face was extremely youthful, with fresh bright eyes as 
blue as that dear flower, the prairie blue-bonnet, and 
cotton-white hair. Travelling from New Orleans to 
St. Louis by a Mississippi steamer, he had engaged the 
state-room number one hundred and ten. The boat 
was immensely crowded, and his room had been taken 
possession of by a party of lawless men. Standing 
outside the open door of the ladies' cabin, the steward 
called to one of the understewards, "Here, can't you 
get this poor man, one hundred and ten, a berth?" 
A pretty lady put her head out of the state-room. " Oh, 
steward, bring him right in here," she said; "the ladies 
won't mind a harmless old man of a hundred and ten, 
and, poor old soul, he must have somewhere to sleep." 
"Pull your hat down," said the steward, "and hobble 
to your berth; it will be all right." But the lovely 



A Man of Two States 53 

ladies chattering, relieving their pretty heads of hun- 
dreds of curls and braids, letting their own hair flow 
over their shoulders, and dropping immense hoop 
skirts which fell with a clang like steel armour to the 
floor, were temptations too strong to be withstood. 
Mr. Ward peeped, and immediately an observant 
young lady called out, "Steward, steward, come quick 
and get your hundred and ten. He 's looking at us with 
young blue eyes." And the steward had to find him 
another state-room, minus crinolines. 

There were many men in Texas opposed to Secession 
at the beginning of the war. The State had entered 
the Union on her own terms; she was prosperous and 
far enough away from the passionate excitement in 
Washington for astute statesmen to see inevitable 
defeat. From the beginning everything was against 
the South. The North had wealth, open ports, greater 
numbers, and even w4th success the South must have 
suffered horribly from a war fought on her own territory. 
But when Texas finally accepted Secession she did it 
with no half measures, furnishing to the Confederate 
army eighty-eight regiments of infantry and cavalry, 
and more than thirty batteries of artillery. In all, 
seventy-five thousand Texas men fought for the 
Southern cause. Albert Sydney Johnston ranked among 
the ablest officers in the service. Ben McCullough 
commanded the Texas Rangers, who did not know fear. 
Sam Bell Maxey, a cousin of my mother's, soon won 
his two stars. General William Steele, who had mar- 
ried my aunt Laura Duval's sister, an ardent sympa- 
thiser with the South, had resigned from a crack 
cavalry regiment in the United States army to take com- 
mand in Texas. And the long roll-call of glory holds 
hundreds of Texas names. 



54 My Beloved South 

A baptism of fire during the siege of Vicksburg gave 
Texas an adopted son whose name is well-known to 
history. An important redoubt had been captiired by 
the Federals and it was necessary for the Confederates 
to recapture it. One entire company from Alabama 
had been shot down to the very last man, when Waul's 
Texas brigade volunteered to capture the fort. Cap- 
tain Bradley said he wanted no married officers to take 
part, the danger was too great, Pettus, a young Con- ■ 
federate officer said: "Bradley, you are a married man 
yourself. Give me your command." Bradley an- 
swered: "No, where my troops go, I will lead them." 
Captain Pettus said, "All right, come ahead." He 
placed himself well in front, led them by a circuitous 
route, and before the Federals knew it, the fire of the 
Confederates was destructively centred upon the fort, 
which they unexpectedly approached in the rear. 
The quick volley and attack caused a panic, the fort 
was seized, and a greater number of prisoners than 
their own men were captured. Before the enemy fully 
realised their position, the Confederates had spiked 
their guns and without the loss of a single man had 
gained a complete victory. They marched back with 
heads up and banners flying to the quick-step of Dixie, 
played with drum and fife. A Texas soldier, full of 
enthusiasm, asked who the tall man was who led them. 
Someone said, " Pettus of Alabama." Then the brigade 
broke into a wild Texas yell and gave cheer after cheer 
for "Pettus of Texas!" "Pettus of Texas!" And 
Senator Pettus ever afterwards claimed to be a man 
of two States, Texas and Alabama, for he had been 
rebaptised on the field of battle for an act of un- 
surpassed daring by a legion of the Lone Star State. 

After the war, Texas soon recovered herself. Men 



Texas after the War 55 

who fight vaHantly forgive generously. Confederate 
soldiers came back with no bitterness or animosity in 
their hearts towards the North, and they worked at 
whatever occupation offered itself without hesitation 
or shame. A gallant Captain, with a bullet still in 
his arm, measured a yard of ribbon in a shop; or a 
Major, his only possession one mule, ploughed a long 
straight furrow and planted sugar-cane or cotton. 
Good birth luckily cannot be meastired or ploughed 
away. It remains, and in a crisis it always counts. 
It is said that during the war a gentleman by birth 
recovered from wounds that were fatal to the son of 
the soil. It was not one man fighting death; the 
influence of his gallant forbears abided to help him. 

In the days of my childhood courage was a fetish in 
Texas. Girls and boys tried to bear a hurt without a 
cry. They were brought up to an open air life, and early 
learned to ride and run and swim and fish and hunt. 
When I was a baby my father had a Mexican saddle 
made with a pommel about the size of a soup-plate 
and, sitting in front of him, I rode in this way all over 
the country until I was big enough to mount a pony. 
Then I learned to ride on a gay little animal called 
"Buttons." He was of Creole stock, an active, boyish, 
sturdy little fellow of the sweetest temper and the warm- 
est heart, as eager for affection and petting as a dog, and 
as playful as a kitten. If I held up a pocket-handker- 
chief he stood rigidly still looking at it, showing the 
white of his eyes with roguish knowingness, until 
unexpectedly, with a rush, he ran and seized it out of 
my hand. Although my father paid only twenty-five 
dollars for him he had good Spanish and Norman blood 
in his veins, and with his bright bay colour and long 
black mane and tail was a very good-looking little 



56 My Beloved South 

animal. Sometimes out of sheer joy of life he tilted 
me over his head and I would find myself sitting on the 
grass very surprised, looking into his mischievous face. 
After Buttons, I held in love my pet pig, "Pancake." 
He was extremely jealous of the pony whom he held 
in detestation, and he stood by squealing with rage 
when I mounted for my afternoon ride. This quaint 
pet I had literally raised from the dead. We had a 
famous Berkshire sow of enormous size and distin- 
guished pedigree who overlaid her litter of pigs, leaving 
them as fiat as pancakes. They were thrown out 
behind the stable waiting for a cart to bear them away, 
when I found them, thought one of them breathed, and 
carried him into the kitchen to Mammy. She dosed 
him with paregoric — wrapped him in hot flannels, put 
him by the fire and gave him a bottle of fresh warm 
milk. Slowly he revived, and for a long time I tended 
him every day and Mammy every night. Finally he 
began to fatten, to take notice, and to develop a loving 
heart. He trotted at my heels like a dog and sat on 
the balcony in the evening looking out on the garden 
while my mother watered her flowers. Dressed in a 
black barege gown with low neck and short sleeves and 
a little tulle cape trimmed with pink satin ribbons, she 
would go from bed to bed, carrying a big watering- 
pot, while a crowd of little darkies bearing smaller 
watering-pots trotted after her. Evidently it afforded 
Pancake great satisfaction to see other people at work, 
while he was grunting at leisure. He got his own way 
in everything, not by moral suasion, but by intimida- 
tion. The moment he saw a negro enter the dining- 
room with a dish he began to squeal, and the loud, 
penetrating and shrill noise continued until in despair 
my father would say, "Get a plate and let me give 



A Man of Two States 57 

Pancake his dinner first." And before anyone else 
was served, a liuge plate of steaming food was taken 
out to him for the sake of quiet. 

Our house in Austin was built of stone, with very 
thick walls to make it cool. A piazza in front and an- 
other at the rear ran along the full length of the house. 
After the foundations were begun it was found that a 
noble elm-tree would have to be sacrificed to make 
room for the balcony, and my father was indeed the 
woodsman who spared the tree, for he built both upper 
and lower galleries round the trunk of it, and left the 
wide-spreading branches to make a thick shade in 
summer over the roof. My mother always regretted 
that it had not been cut down, as she said it brought 
insects into the house, but I loved its rough body and 
my bird-cages conveniently hung upon it. The first 
mocking-bird I tried to raise had a pathetic fate. Its 
father, rather than leave his son in captivity, became 
its filiuscide. My fledgling was getting on splendidly; 
his dewy eyes were soft and bright, he had a ferocious 
appetite and was fat and happy, when one day the 
parent bird approached the cage with a little red berry, 
fed him with it, and in a moment he was dead. 

I profited by my experience. The next mocking- 
bird I adopted was brought up out of a cage; he was 
called "Moonlight," and was perfectly tame, hopping 
about in every room in the house and sleeping at night 
on the back of a chair on the balcony. When he was 
just budding into manhood and had begun to try his 
voice with low-toned, beautiful warblings, he met a 
tragic end through a yellow cat who caught him, for 
although he was rescued it was only to die very quickly. 
I cried myself into a fever, and my father would have 
shot the cat if I had not begged for its life. 



58 My Beloved South 

A great and constant delight after my pets was the 
garden, now gone forever, for although the old house 
stands the ground has been divided and sold away from 
it: 

I wovld know it, could I find it; 
And before I reached the gate, 
I would catch the smell of roses, 
Where the fragrant hedge encloses 
And the fair white lilies wait. 

' Tall they were, the hedge and lilies, 
When my little feet ran there; 
And I laughed and played beside them, 
But the weary long years hide them, 
Though I seek them everywhere. 

I would know it, could I find it; 
And before I reached the gate, 
I 'd escape long years and pain 
And would be a child again, 
Where the tall white lilies wait. 

It is to me a supreme sadness that with my passionate 
love of every flower that grows, my only garden is that 
dark and solitary enclosure, where I have wept and 
suffered and battled with loneliness and despair, my 
Garden of Gethsemane. 

My mother's garden was a whole acre of blossoms. 
The splendid Spanish bayonet (Yucca), with its thick 
pure waxen flower, grew near the gate. The exotic 
cactus, with its gorgeous blossoms of scarlet, flourished 
where the sun shone hottest; and there were beds of 
heart 's-ease, forget-me-nots, single pinks and carnations, 
creeping ice-plant and the delicate sensitive plant, 
shrubs of crepe myrtle and althea, with rows of holly- 



My Mother's Garden 59 

hocks and gravelled walks thickly bordered with white 
and pink and purple gillyflowers. And the rose 
garden was scarcely ever, even in mid- winter, without 
a few persistent blossoms. There were Marechal Niel 
and heavy-headed tea roses, the soft mauve-pink 
Caroline Testout, deep red Jacqueminot roses, white 
roses with their delicate reticent perfume, and the 
little starry picayune, and banksia; and crimson and 
white ramblers. The old-fashioned sweet, opulent, 
cabbage roses, yellow and pink; the moss-rose, whose 
stem and foliage are almost as fragrant as the flower, 
and the hardy hundred-leaf rose, with its thorny stem, 
grew in riotous profusion everywhere. A German 
horticulturist had helped my mother to make one 
picturesque rose bed. When the bushes reached a 
certain height they were bent, the ends cut and re- 
planted in the earth, where they took root and grew in 
the shape of a half -hoop, and in leaf and blossom, with 
the thick foliage and the many-hued roses covering 
every inch of ground, this was a wonderful spot of 
beauty. Tall lilies, white and pink and scarlet, stood 
like sentinels on either side of the path leading to the 
front door, and in a protected corner of the garden 
heliotrope, oleander, gardenia, lemon verbena, spitti 
sporum, and sweet olive made the air a perfect bouquet 
of fragrance. My mother worked early and late 
among her flower beds, making war on blight, insects 
and ants, and giving the thirsty plants enough water. 
to drink. There was one bed of four o'-clocks, a 
species of yellow azalea whose blossoms remained 
closely folded buds until four o'clock, when they 
opened their lazy golden eyes and gave forth a deli- 
ciously fresh clean perfume. As a child I would 
wait patiently for the magic hour, but these flowers 



6o My Beloved South 

were shy, and I never saw them actually unfold their 
leaves. 

Beyond Waller's Creek, which ran just at the back 
of the garden, was a wide, open prairie with a fine grove 
of post oaks in the centre, trees of beautiful shape with 
broad green leaves. In the spring the prairie was rich 
with variegated colour from the many wild flowers 
which burst into blossom almost over night. There 
were bachelor buttons, coxcomb, wild pink and white 
cyclamen, scarlet sage, sweet william, a large delicate 
pink and white primrose (a different variety from the 
small English flower), and nigger heads, a very sweet- 
smelling flower with a big round centre of dark brown and 
small yellow and red petals. A fragrant white lily, 
called rain lily from its quick blossoming after a shower, 
bloomed there, and amidst all this flashing of brilliant 
tints were soft imdulations of purest azure, as if little 
lakes reflecting the sky were in a state of gentle up- 
heaval. This pretty phenomenon was produced by 
vast quantities of thickly growing blue-bonnets {Lupi- 
niis suhcarnosus) in such vivid luxuriance as to form 
whole patches of sky-blue on the wide prairie. I loved 
that little upright, exquisite, intensely coloured flower, 
with its clear-cut saucy profile and greyish green leaves. 
Perhaps some day I shall see it again. 

And there was the creek, the fascinating never-to- 
be-forgotten creek, where the moment the weather 
was warm enough we, my cousins and I, waded up- and 
down-stream to make discoveries on the fertile banks. 
We found natural grape-vine swings, and ladders of 
strong creepers almost to the tops of some of the trees, 
and underneath a thick growth of wild-rose bushes a 
startled whip-poor-will would dart out, and when we 
peeped between the leaves there would lie her soft 



The Enchanted Creek 6i 

brown nest on a carpet of moss. When the sun shone 
hot, a turtle would leave her snow-white egg on the 
sand, and the rainbow lizard would take a siesta in 
the afternoon. Sometimes we saw one with no tail, 
showing that, while he too-soundly slept, a mischievous 
boy had dropped a sharp stone and cut it off. And 
there were gentle-eyed horned frogs, who never ran 
away, but would let us, with wildly beating hearts, 
handle them and put them down again. On the banks 
grew pokeberry bushes, dipping towards the stream, 
and we gathered their rich purple berries and painted 
each other's cheeks and lips a deep vermilion-red; and 
there were beautiful teasel-tufts, that indelibly stained 
our hands. We made bouquets from the great beds of 
horsemint with its tiny white blossom, and we shelled 
the milkweed pod and with the white silky hair stuffed 
mattresses for our dolls. The beautiful kingfisher 
made darts of light at our approach and the little, 
harmless, jade-green water-snakes, who touched our 
bare legs, would make us shriek aloud with frightened 
ecstasy. We could hear the Bob-White calling in the 
distance and sometimes find his low nest built almost 
in the water. The slow-moving tortoise drew in his 
head when, chattering, we passed. The melancholy coo 
of the wood-dove made us momentarily sad, for we 
thought he was calling for his missing mate and would 
be a solitary bird bachelor all the rest of his melancholy 
life, since we were always told that when a dove died 
the other never mated again. 

The green katy-did sang long and lingeringly along 
the margin of the creek; the crickets chirped more 
loudly there, and the brown frogs gave forth a mellower 
boom. It was a place of dear enchantment, and how 
disappointed we were when a drought came and dried 



62 My Beloved South 

the dimpling, clear, brown water and turned the irreg- 
ular little stream into a dusty road-bed. Ah ! the poor 
little city children who are devoid of all these sweet 
woodland melodies! 

And if my borrowed cousins sometimes went home 
and I had no playfellow, there were all of my dear 
dream friends who in imagination dwelt with me. 
Little Red Riding-Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Cin- 
derella, Bluebeard and his wives. Sister Ann, Puss-in- 
Boots, Jack the Giant-killer, Jack-of-the-Beanstalk, 
the fairy Princess and Bob Goodfellow, Little Bo-peep 
and Little Boy-blue and Sleeping Beauty, were all as 
real to me as my father and mother and aunt Polly 
Hynes, who lived part of the year with us and was 
always ready to read me these enchanting fairy stories. 
I loved her dearly and feared her too, for she was a 
lady of unassailable dignity and rigorous habits. 
Never on the warmest summer's day did she take off her 
"stays" and put on a loose muslin wrapper; no matter 
how high the temperature, she was always scrupulously 
dressed, with not a hair out of place. A ruffled cap 
of beautiful lace with strings was tied under her chin; 
an embroidered collar of sheer muslin was fastened at 
the neck with the miniature of a young man in a uni- 
form; and a deep purple or black and white muslin 
gown neatly fitted her tall erect figure. She always 
carried a brocaded silk bag which contained two snuff- 
boxes, one of dark enamel, the other of gold, with 
Holyrood castle engraved on the top. Two handker- 
chiefs, a gaily coloured one for snuff, the other of sheer 
fine linen, and a pair of black woollen mitts, in case her 
hands got cold, completed the contents. At precisely 
eleven o'clock in the morning a little negro, who rarely 
left her side except for this office, entered the room with 



Inexorable Texas 63 

a glass of sangaree (ice and claret sugared, and powdered 
thickly on the top with nutmeg) and two cakes. She 
delicately drank the claret and nibbled the cakes, and 
I remember thinking that as soon as I grew up I should 
certainly take snuff and drink sangaree. 

When Aunt Polly grew very old the sexton of St. 
David's who was old too, called her "Aunt Polly." 
She drew herself up and said, "Only my nephews and 
nieces call me that — Miss Hynes, if you please," and 
Miss Hynes she remained even to our youngest and 
most intimate friends. Of all her nieces she loved 
best her namesake, Molly Duval, the beauty of the 
family. Molly was my favourite too. She had hair 
as yellow as ripe corn, a beautifully smooth pink and 
white skin, brown eyes, and a charming sense of humour. 
When she reached girlhood she was a great toast and 
belle, breaking many hearts, but finally she married 
William Nelson of Virginia. Even those of us who 
were not so beautiful as Molly had a lovely time. 
As Austin was a military station, there were, in addi- 
tion to the young men of the town, any number of 
cavalry and infantry officers, while other young soldiers 
stationed at solitary posts came down occasionally 
from the frontier, and not having seen a woman for 
months they were very impressionable, and generally 
became engaged to some girl not many days after their 
first meeting. There were balls and dances, moon- 
light picnics, rides and drives, serenades and cham- 
pagne breakfasts, and life was as careless and gay as 
youth, health, and high spirits could make it. 

And yet beneath that carelessness the inexorable 
spirit of the country was and is always present. The 
way of transgressors is not unusually hard in that dear 
land, but no leper in a desert island is more avoided than 



64 My Beloved South 

a hypocrite when found out ; and the punishment meted 
out to him is remorseless. I remember a man who 
came to Texas, took orders for the ministry, and 
became assistant curate to an Episcopal clergyman. 
There was a rumour that he was married, but he was 
uncommunicative about his affairs, and nothing was 
definitely known until he produced a newspaper which 
contained a notice of the death of his first wife. He 
fell in love with a sweet, amiable, and charming girl, 
and a little later married her. It was such a pretty 
wedding, all smiles and tears, white tulle, fresh orange 
blossoms, white Swiss muslin, bridesmaids, many 
loving gifts, and heartfelt and affectionate wishes for 
the modest bride. The bridegroom, a plain, dark, 
swarthy, unattractive man, was so filled with joy that 
he appeared almost good-looking. After the marriage 
two children were born, and they were quite happy 
until the first wife appeared to say that she had never 
died, and had never been divorced from her husband. 
She had last heard of him in Arizona as having married 
a Mexican girl; then he disappeared, and she had 
now traced him to Texas. A trial for bigamy was 
begun, he was convicted and sentenced to serve one 
or two years in the penitentiary. His young wife, 
the mother of his children, was that most touching, 
amazing creature on earth, a woman with perfect faith 
in the man she loved. She did not believe the first 
wife's tale, nor the evidence (if she even read it), nor 
the jury nor the judge. She simply rested upon the 
word of her husband. This attitude aroused even the 
pity of the first wife, and she, upon being appealed to 
by the husband's counsel, agreed to divorce him. 

The decree was granted without delay, and before 
he went to serve his term of imprisonment he was 



Inexorable Texas 65 

allowed, in consideration of his second wife's family, 
to leave the prison, and be married in his own house 
at five o'clock in the morning by a justice of the peace. 

It was after he had served his term that his true 
punishment began. He was not only ostracised; he 
even ceased to exist in the community, and earned his 
bread by going to the back door of the houses where he 
had been an honoured guest and leaving blocks of ice. 
The people resented with bitterness the betrayal of 
their trust. They could not forget that a hypocrite 
had married the young, prayed for the sick, and buried 
the dead, and they could never forgive him. Texas 
might pardon a filibuster, an outlaw or a hot-blooded 
impulsive slayer of men (I won't say murderer), but a 
hypocrite goes unpardoned. 

My father once questioned the old sexton who 
wanted him to defend a man who had committed a 
murder. "But, Stavely," he said, "hasn't O'Brien 
already shot six men?" 

"He is, Jedge," Stavely answered, "but there 's one 
thing to be said for him, he ain't never killed no man 
that did n't want killing mighty bad." 

The man who has met with "an accident" and killed 
another man is regarded leniently — but a ban is laid 
upon the hypocrite. He is a coward, and a coward is 
worse than an outcast, for life in that wide country is 
of less value than honour. My father, who was the 
best, kindest, and most humane gentleman I ever knew, 
believed in the duello. He said a man had a perfect 
right to protect his own home and his womenkind at 
the point of a pistol. He argued that through this 
drastic means we were freed from long, salacious, divorce 
or breach of promise cases, or suits for damaged affec- 
tions; that men when they deceived or compromised 



66 My Beloved South 

women knew the consequences and were more careful 
of their conduct. He did not Hve long enough to 
comprehend the modern woman who, best of all, is 
taught and is able to protect herself. 

The men of Texas are eminently manly. They look 
life squarely in the face with unflinching candid eyes, 
and they do not mind in the least the laugh being 
turned on them for their patriotic devotion to their 
State. They may not be quite so self-centred as that 
famous gentleman of history, Honorius, who wept at 
Ravenna when told that Rome was lost, thinking that 
his pet chicken had flown away, and when he found it 
was only the capital of the world was immensely 
relieved; nor, like Louis XVI, who on a day when there 
was no hunt wrote in his diary, "Nothing doing," 
although at that moment Paris stormed the Bastille; 
but Texans ever bear first in mind the needs and the 
advancement of that wide opal-hearted country. It is 
said that if a member of Congress goes to the Texas 
delegation with a bill which affects the life of the whole 
nation, they listen politely and probably answer: 
"This bill is all very well, but what are you going to 
do for the harbour at Galveston?" Or they mention 
some other appropriation for the benefit of that vast 
land, and certainly the very core of the heart of the 
Lone Star State is rooted in its soil. 

The modern Texan is a fine, independent, upstand- 
ing human being, who boldly carves out his future, 
arguing that a man must first achieve his own glory 
before he boasts of the glory of his forbears. Man is 
a product of the land he lives in. The Texas men in 
Congress are characterised by a certain honest forceful 
directness, courage and independence, doubtless an 
inheritance of the intrepid spirit of the old Republic. 



Inexorable Texas 67 

Senator Culberson, with many busy years of service 
to the State to his credit, is honoured for his impeccable 
honesty. Albert Sydney Burleson, a man of fine 
character, great courage and varied interests, valiantly 
carries forward the tradition of his fighting ancestors 
who helped to make the brave history of the State. 
His character is interestingly complex, combining 
great directness and simplicity with the ready acuteness 
of the far-seeing politician. And he views with a 
prophetic eye, not only the political arena of America, 
but of the whole world. But the whole Texan delega- 
tion are good men and true, fearless, manly, and kind. 
They are not crafty or strategic politicians, for the 
Texan men and women take life with straightforward 
directness, praise their friends, and abuse their enemies. 
It may not be the wisest course to pursue, but oh, it 
can be done with such enjoyment and sincerity! 

Truth only needs to be for once spoke out. 

And there 's such music in her, such strange rhythm, 

As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, 

And clings around the soul, as the sky clings 

Round the mute earth, forever beautiful. 

And if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 

More all-embracingly divine and clear. 

Get but the Truth once uttered, and 'tis like 

A star new-born, that drops into its place. 

And which once circling in its placid round. 

Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. 

I don't believe it would be possible for a man from 
that great gulf State to have written the letter of 
Clement Clay to his wife when, after the war, he was 
imjustly incarcerated at Fortress Monroe: 

Do what you can for the comfort of my parents. . . » 



68 My Beloved South 

Try to exercise charity to all mankind, forgiving injuries, 
cherishing hatred to none, and doing good even to enemies. 
This is true wisdom, even if there were no life beyond the 
grave because it is the best way of securing peace of mind 
and of promoting mere worldly interests. 

To forgive our enemies is hard; to do good to them 
is harder. I have known but one person who even 
contemplated it. Mrs. Mackay, who had suffered 
from the malice of two fashionable American women, 
offered, when they encountered reverses and contem- 
plated going into business, to furnish the capital if 
her name could be kept a secret. I have never had any 
money to give my friends, but I have grave doubts 
whether, even if I had a fortune, I should wish to 
enrich my enemies. 

Wells, in his excellent but not always understanding 
book, The Future oj America — for after all he was only 
six weeks in that vast land — said that every man above 
forty and most of those below that limit seemed to be 
enthusiastic advocates of unrestricted immigration, 
"and," he adds, "I could not make them understand 
the apprehension with which this huge dilution of the 
American people with profoundly ignorant foreign 
peasants filled me." But there is no danger. Every 
age must take care of itself. America was, under the 
providence of God, established as the home of the 
desolate and oppressed, and this is her destiny. In her 
vast melting-pot old evils disappear like dross, and 
new forces are fused into a metal whose purity the 
future alone can test. It must not be forgotten that 
she receives these peasants in their ignorance and need, 
gives them food for their bodies, instructs their minds, 
and endows them with fresh energy. And Mr. Wells 
doesn't realise that when America stretches out her 



Inexorable Texas 69 

strong arm and takes to her broad bosom all nationali- 
ties, Scandinavians, Germans, Frenchmen or Irish- 
men, she transforms them in six months or a year 
into loyal citizens. Whether it be the hope born 
of a fresh environment, new possibilities or newly 
awakened self-respect, the subtle influence of the 
boundless forests, the great Lakes, the long chains of 
mountains, or vast noble prairies like those of Texas, 
something vital holds a man in a mighty grasp in our 
mighty land. His soul, freshly awakened, lifts up its 
voice and cries out, "I am an American." We take 
the discordant elements of all the world, and remould 
them into law-abiding citizens, ready to shoulder a 
musket in defence of our country and of Liberty. 
What other country can do it? But we have done it, 
and are doing it every day. 



CHAPTER V 

ACROSS THE SEA TO MARYLAND 

Better a day of strife 

Than a century of sleep. 

Give me instead of a long stream of life, 

The tempests and tears of the deep. 

Father Thomas Ryan. • 

WHEN the responsibility of my own life was sud- 
denly and violently thrust upon me and I found 
myself homeless and alone, the waves of misery v/hich 
rushed over and submerged me were so thunderous 
and heavy, they left me bruised, beaten, and broken. 
Blindly I struggled to shore, as one already dead. 
The first thing that brought me to life was the voice of 
a little child. 

It was a long, long way off, and it was only in my 
dreams, but one day it came closer, and then the dear 
Love, my grandson, rushed into my room and said, 
"Damma, you have come to live with us, and must 
never go away again, not for one minute!" And all 
these precious words were said between little close, 
bear-like hugs and haphazard warm kisses. When he 
left me the drought of my tears was over. I could 
weep again, and life could not be altogether desolate 
when the day began with play and toys. Quite early 
in the morning my bedroom door was flung open with 
a cheerful, "Well, Httle Dam!" and the Love, with his 

70 



Across the Sea to Maryland 71 

hands full of soldiers, or ducks, or bears, or boats, 
would perch himself on my bed. And when he re- 
turned to his nursery he always left one little toy so 
that " Damma would n't be lonesome." And so through- 
out the day, if my troubles weighed too heavily upon 
me, I would touch for a moment the toy soldier, or the 
little boat, or the woolly dog, and they brought me 
consolation. 

But the nights were dreadful, the long nights of 
hideous sleeplessness, with one maddening thought 
hammering my brain into pulp. I was like an uprooted 
plant dying in a new soil. Lura, my sweet Love's mother 
and an affectionate daughter to me, said: "Mother, 
you must go to America and get well, not to New York, 
not to Washington, not to any of the large cities, but 
go down to the very heart of the South, go where the 
sun shines. Go, dear, it will prove a healing balm to 
your spirit; I am sure it will." And I looked into my 
little Love's beautiful eyes and said: 

"What seek you, soul that never sleeps, 
Within these loved eyes' crystal deeps? 

I seek content, content. 
The eyes allure and they are dear, 
Still I must go — it is not here." 

But a horribly sad inertia possessed me, and it was 
months before I could gather strength enough to cross 
the Atlantic, although it is the easiest thing possible 
to go to Tilbury, get on board one of the Atlantic 
Transport Line Steamers, and almost immediately a 
beneficial rest cure begins. The boats are particularly 
comfortable and quiet; they are primarily built for 
carrying valuable cattle, and the accommodation for 
horses, cows, sheep and pigs, is vastly more comfort- 



72 My Beloved South 

able and better ventilated than third-class passengers 
get on the larger steamers. 

I often cross on this line and alwaj^s go down on the 
lower deck to see the foiir-footed travellers; sometimes 
they are valuable thoroughbreds, or a hundred draft 
horses, big, black, brown and bay fellows, from Belgium, 
France, and England. 

Once there were sixty Egyptian donkeys with us, 
beauties in colour, colossal in size and also in voice. 
One morning when a loud noise clove the air, a lady 
passenger turned alarmed and said to me: "What a 
strange thing, the fog whistle is blowing and there 
is n't any fog. Something serious must be the matter." 
But it was only an Egyptian donkey braying a regret 
for the Nile. And there are occasional prize dogs, 
beautiful fluffy-haired cats, and wonderfully bred guinea 
pigs with such long feathery hair, high crests, and top- 
knots that they bear a strange likeness to unwinged 
cockatoos. And the gulls followed us, those gipsies of 
the air, darting here and there or balanced on a wave 
almost all the way to New York. The service is 
excellent on these sensible ships, the food is good and 
abundant. The nine or ten days of our voyage passed 
quickly, for there were most agreeable people on board. 

Dr. Venning, from Charles Town, in West Virginia, 
helped me by a good deal of sound advice. I think I 
never saw a saner, healthier, kinder or more capable 
man than this young surgeon. His mind, his body, and 
his work are all attuned to his profession which make 
for success. He drinks neither tea, coffee nor stimu- 
lants of any kind. He sleeps in the open air, lives on 
simple food, has a contented mind and is altogether a 
Man — frank, honest, and straightforward. He is hap- 
pily married, is an intelligent, strict father, and, above 



Across the Sea to Maryland 73 

all, he is deeply interested in his profession and am- 
bitious about his work. In his short vacation in 
England he had spent every afternoon in the operating- 
room of some hospital, and yet he could drop his 
work and all thought of it in a minute, talk about 
any subject under the sun, and laugh with the hearti- 
ness of a boy. What a help his very presence must be 
in the sick room! 

When we arrived in New York I lingered unneces- 
sarily. My healing had not begun — I had not enough 
energy to unpack and leave my winter belongings, and 
take out my lighter clothes for the South. And Julia, 
one of my adopted daughters, begged me to stay. I 
have five adopted daughters — Helen, for brilliancy and 
inspiration; Caroline, for beauty and gentleness; Bee, 
for loyalty and unselfishness; dear Margaret Douglas 
for sweetest sympathy and appreciation, and Julia for 
love and honeyed flattery (Ah, what soothing balm !) , 

Julia is of good birth and lineage, a tall, fair daughter 
of the South, and through certain qualities she has 
won success in that hard city. The stranger passing 
up and down Fifth Avenue can see on a modest but 
very distinct sign, 

Miss Carroll 

Gowns. 

This is the way it came about. Julia, with a negro 
Mammy, living in New York, was somewhat helplessly 
looking round for work when she and the negress, a 
beautiful needlewoman, made a Southern gown for a 
Southern woman going to Saratoga. It was one of 
those cobwebby New Orleans organdies, trimmed with 
much Valenciennes insertion and lace, with here and 
there a heavenly satin bow made by Mammy, whose 



74 My Beloved South 

genius lay in that direction. The dress was an instan- 
taneous success, and Julia became a specialist in wash- 
dresses. Later, silk and fine woollen gowns were added 
to her jaconets and muslins, and now she goes to Paris 
twice a year and all the latest modes fashioned from 
the most wonderful materials are to be found in her 
splendid shop, with its setting of beautiful antique 
furniture, carved mirrors, cases of old fans, china, 
and bric-a-brac. This success has grown, not out 
of the rosebud organdie, but from Julia's tact — tact 
in the morning, tact in the afternoon, tact in the 
evening. Julia puts it on like armour before the poly- 
glot waiter arrives in her apartment with her break- 
fast, 

"Where," she said to a strange dark little man, "is 
Tony?" 

"Gone, Madame," 

"And do you take his place?" 

"Yes, Madame," 

"And what are you?" 

"A Greek, Madame; I am going back to Athens in 
the spring for the Olympic games." 

"And," said Julia, very sweetly,— but absent-mind- 
edly, looking at his queer little knock-kneed legs — " do 
you take part in the Olympic games?" 

The poor creature tried to stand straight, and said 
with an air of pride, "No, Madame, that is ... " 

"Ah," said Julia, "I am sure you could.'" And 
whenever after that she telephoned, the Olympian 
appeared with lightning rapidity. 

Moreover, Julia doesn't only listen to bores, she 
goes further; she drinks in what they have to say and 
laughs spontaneously at their witless jokes. It is 
royally splendid. Of course now and then she has to 



Across the Sea to Maryland 75 



retire to a sanatorium to seek silence and a rest cure, 
for eternal tact tries the most robust health. 

One of her customers has a chicken farm, and, next 
to the agricultural department, there is no one who 
knows so much of cocks and hens, their food and their 
vagaries as Julia. Another is a rose grower, and on 
slugs too she could take a degree. Her true position 
in the world should be that of an ambassadress in a 
foreign country having very complicated relations with 
America, — Japan, for example. With Julia there to 
pour oil on the troubled waters, we would never be 
embroiled in war. 

So, without energy, I stayed on. The first impetus 
to encourage my departure occurred at a charming 
dinner in the house of that wonderfully successful 
woman, Elizabeth Marbury. She lives in Washington 
Irving's pretty, old house in Seventeenth Street; it is 
decorated and furnished in perfect taste by her friend 
and comrade, Elsie de Wolfe, and is one of the few old 
landmarks left in that restless city of constant change 
and continual progress. 

I remembered that my grandfather had dined with 
Washington Irving in this very house. In that white 
dining-room whose walls must have heard many a 
brilliant jeu d' esprit, he had talked and laughed and 
told stories (for he was a famous raconteur) which 
that delightful writer afterwards used in Woljert's 
Roost. 

I heard at my left a fragment of conversation be- 
tween a Southern lady, living in England, and Professor 
Pupin. 

"Are you," she said, "an American?" 

"Yes," he answered, "I am." 



76 My Beloved South 

"Then why your foreign accent?" she asked. 

"I Uke it," he repHed. 

"So do I," she said, "but, as an American, I don't 
think you are entitled to it. But now that we have 
settled the question of your nationality, where do you 
really come from?" 

He said smiling, "I am a Slav. Does that mean 
anything to you?" 

"Oh, yes," she said, "a Slav can come from Poland, 
or Russia, or Bulgaria." 

"As a matter of fact," the professor replied, "I hail 
from a place that doubtless you have never heard of, 
the Balkans." 

"The Balkans!" said the lady, with a twinkle in her 
eye. "Why, my husband has been devoted to a lady 
in London for twenty years, who lives round the corner 
from us, and whenever I ask him where she is he always 
says, ' In the Balkans. ' " 

"Now why," said the professor, "this long devo- 
tion?" 

"Well," said the lady, "this Greek siren is said to 
be wicked, beautiful, and fascinating." 

"Surely," said the professor, "you don't expect a 
man to withstand so seductive a combination?" 

"No," said the lady, "I am very broad-minded; I 
don't expect a man to withstand any combination." 

"That," said the professor, "is very kind of you, 
but it shows a lack of creduHty. A perfect wom-an 
should always be trusting." 

"The Balkan influence," said the lady, "destroys 
trust, and I make no pretence to perfection." 

"Listen!" said the professor; "they are talking 
about New Thought across the table. Are you inter- 
ested in it?" 



Across the Sea to Maryland ii 

"A bit," answered the lady, "but I have a much 
older religion than that." 

"What is it?" asked the professor. 

She replied, "I am a London Buddhist." 

"That sounds broad," said the professor, "and what 
does your creed embody?" 

Said the lady : " Reincarnation, tolerance, quick under- 
standing — for instance, when I meet a very agreeable 
man, with a foreign accent, but an American at heart, I 
know that we have been friends in a Paleozoic time." 

"Fair lady," said the professor, "I see that you, too, 
are from the Balkans." 

As I listened, I said to myself, "Southern people 
still possess the art of conversation. I will go to the 
South and be amused." 

And next morning letters came from Washington which 
aroused me to immediate action. My brother Sam wrote : 

Brierbank, 

Chevy Chase, Maryland, 

December 15th. 

Dearest Bessie, 

Lois and I were delighted to read this morning of your 
arrival in New York. Of course you are coming to spend 
Christmas in the bosom of your family, so write us how soon 
you will arrive. We will give you Maryland oysters, a 
Virginia turkey, fresh cranberry sauce, candied sweet 
potatoes, fried hominy and bully ice cream. I will guaran- 
tee you will relish your Christmas dinner. 

Our house is full of servants to wait on you, I do not 
know whether with judgment, but I am sure you will be 
entertained and amused. The butler, the cook's husband, 
got his house training from driving a Knox express waggon 
for nineteen years, and is just a trifle absent-minded as to 
plates and dishes. In the dining-room when he is not 
falling over his own feet, he is absently standing on his 



78 My Beloved South 

heels, but if you remind him of food, he will willingly serve 
it to you, for he is amiable and well-disposed. 

Our chambermaid is one Harrison LefHngwell, who came 
to be a chauffeur but fell from the motor to making beds, 
as soon as I perceived that he did n't know the difference 
between a radiator and a trunk rack. He is shaped like 
Sir Richard Calmady, but he can walk and Sir Richard 
could not; and he makes a better chambermaid than the 
wenches, who are not willing to leave the city. I have an 
idea that you will be able to get more work out of Harrison 
Leffingwell than we do. He likes fine clothes, so bring 
your best frocks along, and he likes the grand air, and being 
ordered about. We have told him that you are English, 
so he is already duly impressed. 

I regret to say the one time he drove the motor he sent 
it to the machine shop for a fortnight's repairs, so I cannot 
meet you at the station, but Harrison will be there to take 
all the enormous quantities of useless and unnecessary 
luggage you English carry about with you, and will put it 
on the car which almost passes our door. 

Lois is busy with the Christmas tree. Mysterious pack- 
ages continually arrive and the children are full of vivid 
interest in them. I am going to keep Coco until the end of 
your visit, although he is in danger of sudden dissolution, 
being such a vagabond that he will not stay in the house, 
and the police are on the track of all wandering dogs. Not 
even a muzzle will save him, as there is an epidemic of 
rabies in Chevy Chase; but I know you would like to see 
him before he goes as a "paying guest" to the country. I 
shall have to send him a good long distance from home, 
otherwise he will turn up again, as he dislikes darkies as 
much as a Northern man. And the only person I can get 
to take him until the epidemic is over is a negro farmer 
living in Virginia. 

Expecting to see you soon. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Sam. 



Across the Sea to Maryland 79 

Coco was a friend of yester year, an interesting 
mongrel brought over from England by a dog fancier as 
a hound of the purest breed. But he seemed to have 
been crossed by a mastiff, for he soon began to grow 
to an enormous size and his owner in disgust turned 
him loose upon the community, where he picked up a 
precarious living, until he made acquaintance with 
Sam. Then began his morning calls at Brierbank. 
These continued for a few weeks, until one afternoon, 
very quietly and unobtrusively, he entered the drawing- 
room, and stowed himself away in a dark corner. A 
few successive afternoons he did the same thing; a 
little later he extended his visits until evening, and one 
blessed night he stayed until next day, and after that 
was legally adopted. 

The days of his vagabondage were over; he was 
homeless no longer, and he never put on airs, remember- 
ing the time of his poverty and waifdom. 

He was always enthusiastically grateful for the 
smallest attention, or the slightest notice. His tail 
was like that of a beaver, broad, wide and muscular. 
"Hello, Coco!" and that heavy tail delivered a rapid 
number of heavy thumps, while "Good Coco, good old 
dog," made him hysterical with delight, and brought 
down a volley of thunderous strokes which fairly shook 
the house. 

On my former visit to Chevy Chase Coco and I had 
become devoted friends, and I rejoiced to know he would 
be there to welcome me. He was not like "Carlo," 
the collie of Sam's neighbour across the way, quite 
unselfish, gentle with children, always ready to play 
with them, no matter how tired, and a perfect gentle- 
man; but he had his good points, and considering 
the want of training and education of his puppyhood, 



8o My Beloved South 

Coco was a very excellent specimen of the self-made 

dog. 

Another of my letters was from Mary Clark, the 
loyal and faithful friend of many years. She wrote: 

I want you very much for Christmas week, but if the 
family claim you, then my week must come later; but for 
Christmas dinner I must have you. I know, dear Bessie- 
kins, how you still enjoy many things that grown-ups no 
longer care for, and Bee and I (her daughter and my dearly 
loved friend) have been preparing a surprise for you, an 
old-fashioned Southern Christmas. Write or telegraph 
to me at once, dear. 

Mary, though a Southern woman, is extraordinarily 
prompt and exact. She has not a drop, like me, of the 
"Old Reliable" blood in her veins. If she arranges to 
go on Tuesday she goes; if I arrange to go on Tuesday 
I go on Wednesday, or maybe on Thursday morning, and 
why not if the sun shines and someone wants me to 
stay? 

I telegraphed to Mary that I would come to the 
Christmas dinner, and to Sam to expect me the next 
afternoon. Harrison Leffingwell met me at the station. 
He really is one of the most comical looking negroes I 
ever saw. His face is round with a wide flat nose, a huge 
mouth, splendid white teeth, shoulders broad enough 
for a man six feet tall, and arms extraordinarily long 
and strong, but he has scarcely any legs at all, and 
somehow his idea of covering the deficiency is to have 
his trousers made immensely wide. Consequently, 
at a little distance he looks like the dwarf of the Arabian 
Nights wearing Turkish trousers — certainly the lower 
part of his body has the appearance of being attired 
in harem garb. His strong long arms gathered up my 



Across the Sea to Maryland 8i 

numerous bags and impedimenta, and we soon found 
ourselves in Chevy Chase. Sam said that Harrison 
as he advanced towards the house was entirely obscured 
by the luggage, which appeared to be walking alone, 
but he was as strong as a horse and could have carried 
more if necessary. 

Although it was late in December, the sun was shin- 
ing like May and there was every indication of a very 
green Christmas. We were quite sure of this when 
Sam and I, standing by a long French window looking 
out upon the lawn, saw a flash of scarlet, and a slender 
Kentucky cardinal swung himself to and fro on a little 
bare rose-bush. He was soon joined by a blue-bird, 
with his faint rose breast and his sweet little song, and 
later a silver dove fluttered down from a tall tree. 

"There," said Sam "did you ever in your life see 
such a good-looking crowd? Is n't the red bird the 
handsomest thing you ever laid your eyes on? And 
that blue-bird, with his fashionable rose-coloured 
breast, I don't know but after all he is the greater dandy 
of the two." 

I said: 

"And then comes the blue-bird, the herald of spring. 
Who hails with his warble the charms of the season." 

" * In mantle of sky blue and bosom so red — ' " added 
Sam. 

"Of course," I said, "that 's purely poetry, because 
his bosom is n't really red, it 's pink. Look at his 
profile, is n't it classic?" 

"I have never seen red birds and blue-birds and 
doves in December," said Sam; "they are here to cele- 
brate your home-coming. Look at the combination, 
red, white, and blue, — that 's to arouse your patriotism." 

6 



82 My Beloved South 

Then Mary Lois, Sam's only daughter, came up to 
the garden walk and the birds flew away. Sam said, 
"Mary Lois, did n't you see those birds? You should 
have gone round the back way." 

Mary Lois has, I am sure, a successful career before 
her. I shall expect her even without a dot, — and this 
will be a greater triumph for America than either a 
polo victory or a yacht trophy — to marry at least a 
Duke. For already at the tender age of six she has a 
number of admirers, her father's friends, who believe 
in deeds not words; they give her dolls and boxes of 
candy and toys of every conceivable description, and 
she has already all the qualities to make her popular as 
a belle. In the first place, of course, she is very pretty. 
Men are always talking about liking intellectual women 
and admiring clever ones, but they fall in love with, 
and make tragedies over the pretty ones. Beauty 
is the most important asset, for beauty governs the 
world. 

Mary Lois has golden hair, sympathetic, observant 
eyes, a neat nose, and a charming smile that she never 
takes off. She does not talk too much and she is 
exceedingly affectionate, and oh, greatest gift of all, 
she is for ever looking up and adoring. She loves 
praise and she loves to give it. She is very gentle, 
delights in pretty clothes, keeps them clean, and is 
always gentle and flattering. 

When on a very hot afternoon a gentleman, himself 
a father, goes out to Chevy Chase laden with a wax 
doll fashionably dressed in clothes that button and 
unbutton, and Mary Lois's eyes sparkle with gratitude 
and love and adoration as he presents it to her, my 
hopes for a future Duke are in the ascendant. She 
takes every correction with gentle placidity, and she was 



Across the Sea to Maryland 83 

immediately sorry that she had not gone through the 
back garden, and avoided scaring the birds away. 

Harrison Leffingwell proved an excellent servant. 
He brushed my clothes, gave my shoes a brilliant polish, 
cleaned my silk blouses, pressed my tailor-made coats 
and skirts, and showed real talent as a maid. Also, 
when we got to know each other better he told me he 
was a solo singer in his church and sang hymns varied 
with rag-time tunes to me, and certainly he has a 
beautiful tenor voice and is quite capable of making a 
success in vaudeville. I asked him one day whether 
he would go to England to live with me. He said he 
would like it immensely. Sam was at once interested 
about a livery for him. He thought there ought to 
be scarlet somewhere, either a scarlet waistcoat or a 
scarlet tie, and a blue coat with brass buttons and a 
scarlet collar. He said: "Harrison can do the work of 
a maid, answer the door, wait at table, and then in 
the evening you can call him in, and let him entertain 
your guests. It seems to me Leffingwell will be a unique 
ornament to your establishment." 



CHAPTER VI 

CHRISTMAS AND OLD MEMORIES 

Rose is red and violet's blue, 
Sugar 's sweet and so are you, 
If you love me as I love you, 
No knife can cut our love in two. 

LOVE is a poor invertebrate thing, unless the people 
* who care for each other are congenial. They must 
enjoy long talks, spontaneous laughs, long silences, 
and the confidences that only midnight brings; for 
there is something about that hour which induces a 
true communion of spirits. How Sam and I have 
owled it, talldng far into the morning, until Lois has 
called out, "Are you two ever coming to bed?" 

In every family certain members are particularly 
congenial to each other. We two seem to have so 
much to talk about — our father, first and best of all. 
I can always talk of him, and Sam, who was only four 
when our father died, can always listen. "You know," I 
said, disregarding Lois, "Pappy was like the Pied Piper 
of Hamelin with the tail of childern following after him. 
He had kept the heart of a child and was one of them, 
and his pockets bulged with candy and oranges for the 
little ones. He was tender to all humanity, and he had 
a great taste for romance!" 

And I told Sam my father's story of Jonathan Meigs, 
who, some four generations ago, was a suitor for the 

84 



Christmas and Old Memories 85 

hand of a charming coquettish Virginia beauty. He 
was desperately in love with her and anxiously un- 
certain as to his fate. At last after months of abject 
devotion on his part, he made up his mind to offer her 
his hand and heart, feeling that if she refused him it 
would mean a life-long disappointment. 

The young lady lived on Capitol Hill in a house with 
a garden in front and a long flagged path leading to the 
gate. One beautiful moonlight night while she was 
sitting on the balcony, and the mocking-bird trilled 
a love song to his mate, Jonathan took his courage in 
both hands and proposed to the love of his life. She 
was uncertain — said she liked him very much, but she 
did not love him and could not marry him. The blow 
of her refusal was even more terrible than he had anti- 
cipated, and when he said good-night to her and walked 
down the path, the moonlight streaming on his bare 
head, she saw a face of deathlike pallor, and his 
shoulders were bent like those of an old man. 

In that moment pity entered her gentle heart, and a 
tender maternal love came fluttering after it, for the 
love of every true woman should have in it something 
of the mother too. As Jonathan reached the front 
gate and raised the latch, he heard a sweet, gentle, 
tender voice say, "Return, Jonathan! Jonathan! 
Return ! " In a moment he was a man again, the colour 
came back to his face, he raised his head like a crest, 
squared his shoulders, and walked up the path with the 
proud step of a soldier who had won a battle. She 
was standing on the balcony, and he knelt down before 
her and kissed the hem of her gown, saying, "God 
bless you, dear, for those beautiful words, 'Return, 
Jonathan.' " 

They were married, and when the first baby came 



86 My Beloved South 

there was a grand christening, and the name given to 
it was "Return Jonathan." 

There have been four Return Jonathans in the 
Meigs family since. 

"I hope," said Sam, "the name will ever continue." 

The story of Senator Pettus was another of Pappy's 
favourite love stories. Young Pettus belonged to an 
excellent family, but his father had a moderate income 
and he did not go to college. When he fell in love it 
was with a girl of high education, great beauty and 
vaulting ambition. She liked the attentions of the 
frank, agreeable young man, but when he proposed 
marriage to her she said, "Mr. Pettus, when I marry 
it must be a college-bred man, and a man of energy and 
ambition. Life holds for me more than love." 

He took his defeat very quietly, and the next thing 
she heard of him was, that he had gone to college with- 
out even saying good-bye to her. The years passed 
and she received no letter nor any indication whatever 
that she was remembered, but her thoughts often 
strayed to the young man who had shown at least a 
practical regard for her opinion, for she knew that his 
college course must have cost both himself and his 
family a valiant effort. At the end of four years, in 
the sweet summertime, she was sitting in the garden in 
a little arbour all overgrown with roses, when she heard 
a quick, triumphant step coming up the path, and 
Edmund Pettus appeared before her, having graduated 
brilliantly. He laid his diploma on her knee with a 
low bow, saying, "Madam, I have been to college." 

It had been a hardly won guerdon, for he was not 
like a knight of old who had fought his fight in joust 
or tournament in one glorious encounter. His battle 
had meant four years of struggle and hard work, but 



Christmas and Old Memories ^"j 

he had won. Of course the lady was his, for she looked 
at the diploma with suspiciously shining eyes, and said, 
"I love it." And, he answered leaning over and kiss- 
ing her hand, "I hope you love me a little too." 

They were married shortly afterwards and lived 
happy ever after. "Mighty pretty," said Sam, "all 
that old romance of the South." 

Lois called down the stairs, " Do you know the hour? 
It is one o'clock; time for even owls to stop hooting." 

"To-morrow," said Sam, "we will go to bed at nine 
o'clock." Oh, those good resolutions, so delightfully 
broken ! 

The next day was Christmas, and Lois and I went 
into Washington to dine with Mary. The house pre- 
sented a festive appearance, with wreaths of holly and 
bunches of holly and mistletoe adorning the pretty 
rooms. The menu for the feast included Blue Point 
oysters, fresh from the mouth of the Potomac River, 
a splendid Christmas turkey stuffed with chestnuts, 
and served with sausages from Virginia, a smoked ham 
of rare excellence, fried hominy, candied sweet potatoes, 
cranberries, and wonderful complex ice-cream of 
different layers and colours. But the chef d'ceuvre of 
this dinner was my Santa Claus chimney which adorned 
the centre of the table. 

Bee has a singular talent for carpentry and the crea- 
tion of all sorts of pretty things, and instead of a Christ- 
mas tree she had made the top of a chimney. It was 
of wood, covered with red paper simulating little 
bricks. The edge of the chimney was heaped thickly 
with a deep layer of snow, which if it was not real snow 
looked very like it and lasted better than the genuine 
article. The table all around the chimney glittered 
with snowflakes, and Santa Claus waited to descend 



88 My Beloved South 

and fish up the Christmas presents with a small 
hook. 

There was an affectionate thought for everybody at 
the table, but Mary had imparted to my family and 
friends the secret of the chimney, and the pretty things 
drawn up for me by that little Santa Claus and his 
hook were so numerous that I was deeply touched and 
it was more difficult for me to smile than to weep. My 
gifts were chosen with love and discretion, many of 
them being things useful for a wanderer over the face 
of the earth like myself. When the last remembrance, 
a silver book marker was fished out of the chimney I 
said, "Now, no more gifts, or I shall be undone." 
Injustice or unkindness has always a hardening tonic 
effect upon me, but kindness, ah! that is different, it 
touches me and makes me weak — it is what I most 
value in life. 

But with all the affection and friendliness of my dear 
ones in Washington — Sam, Lois, and Mary, and my 
other dear Mary, and Bee, and my sister Minnie, so 
clever, so capable, so kind and unselfish, with the 
executive ability of a statesman and the courage of a 
soldier — I could not seem, even in the midst of these 
happy influences to get any better in health, so I 
decided to act on Mary Clark's advice and go into 
Miss Sylvester's Nursing Home for a rest cure. 

The evening that I arrived there, feeling desperately 
lonely and depressed, just as I got out of the carriage 
a brisk-looking cheerful fox terrier ran affectionately 
to me, stood upon his hind legs, thrust his icy nose in 
my hand and said, "Don't be downhearted, I am going 
to stand by you, whatever happens." He then whisked 
round and disappeared, and when I went into the 
house and to my room, he was sitting in the middle of 



Christmas and Old Memories 89 

my bed, with his pink tongue hanging out, smiling most 
cheerily. 

The nurse said, "I am sorry, but you will have to 
send your dog away, we do not admit dogs to the Home." 
"He is not my dog," I said, "he is just a sympathetic 
soul who has come to give me courage." The sym- 
pathetic soul, however, had decided on the necessity 
of remaining permanently and he sat perfectly rigid, 
growling, and showing his teeth when requested to go. 
In the end, the cab driver was called upstairs and led 
him away. He cast a regretful glance at me, which 
seemed to say, "I am astonished that you have refused 
my kind offices. I had intended to stay here and com- 
fort you." And, indeed, my last hope seemed to 
vanish with him. 

I cannot imagine anything more trying for a restless, 
independent human being than the first week of a rest 
cure. To give yourself, your mind, your body, your 
desires, your wishes all completely into the hands of 
someone else is so difficult. It requires strength of 
will to endure it. My one consolation was my secret 
plan of a solitary elopement. Every day during my 
rest I intended to dress myself in the afternoon, quietly 
slip away, and appear unexpectedly at Mary Clark's; 
and without my saying a word Miss Sylvester divined 
my intention. She said she never entered the room 
without expecting to find me gone. The next week 
the regime was easier to bear; the week after that I 
liked it; and the fourth week I was full of regret at 
leaving. 

Miss Sylvester, a Johns Hopkins graduate, is an 
ideal nurse, calm, firm, not affected by any untoward 
symptoms and having much experience in nervous 
diseases. She understands i)crfectly how to treat 



90 My Beloved South 

patients suffering from them. I could not have be- 
lieved it possible for anyone to have gained as much 
benefit from treatment as I did from that rest cure, 
and yet I did not take it as intelligently as I would a 
second one. I was not reconciled to the rigid rule of 
seeing no one, and writing no letters and just being 
an obedient child, and I struggled to the very end 
against my cold-water packs. Two a day, forty 
minutes altogether in a cold sheet, and yet nothing 
was more beneficial to my raw and blistered nerves 
than this lingering application of cold water. When 
I have time I am going back to take another rest cure, 
and no patient that Miss Sylvester has ever had will 
be so docile, so obedient, as I. 

I went back for a few days to Chevy Chase before 
going to Virginia. Sam always came to my room in 
the early morning for our coffee together. "Are you 
dressed?" he asked. "No, not yet," I said. "Well, 
put on your kimono and I '11 come in." We then 
began our usual long talk, and I remembered to enquire 
one day what had become of our old housekeeper. 

"Is Josephine still living?" I asked him. 

"No," he said, "she died some years ago. The 
fact is, she never fully recovered from her affair with 
Silas Bundy." 

"Poor thing," I said, "before that time she had 
never looked at a man." 

"What a misfortune," said Sam, "that in her middle 
age she should fall entirely, helplessly, violently and 
jealously in love with Silas Scipio Bundy." And as we 
drank our coffee, Josephine's love affair came vividly 
back to me. 

She was a bright-skinned mulatto who lived with us 
from the time we started housekeeping in Washington. 



Christmas and Old Memories 91 

Her pretty face was perfectly round, with bright dark 
eyes, wavy, not kinky, hair, and when she smiled her 
teeth were dazzlingly white. Being fat and hopelessly 
lazy, to compensate for her worthlessness she made 
herself diplomatically and flatteringly agreeable and 
she was, when necessary, extremely capable. There 
was no regularly appointed place in the house for her, 
but she was generally filling in some hiatus. If the cook 
was suddenly taken ill, Josephine went into the kitchen 
and we revelled in excellent meals. If the housemaid 
left at a moment's notice she took charge of the bed- 
rooms. If the butler decamped without warning, 
Josephine waited at the dining-room table, never 
forgot the salt, or the pepper, or the mustard, or the 
clean napkins; arranged the flowers with an under- 
standing hand and all went well until the new servant 
arrived. 

Generally speaking, she was a sort of useful maid, 
sewing a little, answering the door a little, brushing 
clothes, cleaning shoes; and sitting with her hands 
restfully folded, waiting patiently until the time came 
to quit work. Her great attraction was her depend- 
ableness and her domesticity, for she was consistently 
lazy — her fondest lover could not deny that. She 
cared nothing whatever for people of her own colour, 
she rarely ever went to church, she never went out 
in the evening, and was as much a fixture in the house 
as one of the chairs or tables. 

When Sam was bom, a much belated, but altogether 
welcome little brother, Josephine became his devoted 
nurse. In that capacity she was as excellent as in all 
others. She did not wear out the baby's patience with 
too many clean pinafores, or a too clean face, but she 
made his childhood entirely happy. He could go out 



92 My Beloved South 

in the morning in the garden and make mud pies all 
day if he liked. If he refused to change his dress in 
the evening she took his supper to the nursery and 
regaled him with enchanting stories until he went to 
sleep. He was certainly the most adorable child I 
ever saw, with deep sapphire-blue appealing eyes, a 
tow head, a little round face and a rare irresistible 
smile. Of course he had his own way in everything, 
but he was unspoilable. 

All my people have an intense love of animals; in 
Sam it is almost a mania. At one period he had 
guinea pigs, prairie dogs, three chickens, two hens and 
a rooster, a frog, a fox terrier, spotted Japanese mice, 
and a good-sized alligator of unusually rapid growth. 
Of all his family he loved the alligator best. When he 
and the alligator were about the same size, he used to 
carry him upstairs from the kitchen to the bathroom 
in the evening for his swim. At almost every step he 
walked on the alligator's tail, and we always expected 
to see him enter the bathroom minus a hand or an ear, 
but strange to say, this almost wooden animal seemed 
to have developed a human heart, and he really looked 
at his little master with eyes quite watery with affection. 

At this time, when Sam was about six, Josephine 
had moved down permanently into the kitchen as cook, 
and was not in the least disturbed by prairie dogs in 
one corner, guinea pigs in the other, chickens walking 
in and out, the fox terrier always under heel, and the 
alligator generally asleep in the largest and most 
comfortable chair. 

She still retained the old habit of never going out of 
the house so how she met Silas Bundy remained for 
ever a profound secret, but that she did meet him is a 
tragic certainty. Every Thursday evening for about 



Christmas and Old Memories 93 

six months, Silas Bundy in elaborate attire called upon 
Josephine, who, for the first time in her life really 
cleaned up the kitchen, arrayed herself in a stiffly 
starched calico dress, put a table cover over the large 
table in the centre of the room, and under this shoved 
the cages of the various animals, and arranged a deli- 
cious supper for the tall black plumber. Sam said he 
hid himself under the table with the animals on several 
occasions, but he never noticed any tenderness between 
Silas and Josephine. They conversed in a distant man- 
ner with very large words of their own composition. 
Josephine said she was glad she "war n't skittish as 
the animals, who were always in competual motion." 
Silas ate his supper and then rose to go, saying, "Miss 
Josephine, I suttenly will see you dis nex' comin' 
Thursday evening if I live an' nothin' happens." 
And Josephine answered, "Mr. Silas, I suttenly will 
be mighty sorry if anything wuz to happen." 

On St, Valentine's Eve Josephine got a valentine, 
one of the good old-fashioned kind with two splendid 
red hearts pierced by a gilt arrow and upheld by robust, 
be-ribboned cupids who balanced pink toes on a cushion 
of forget-me-nots. All this loveliness was surrounded 
by a heavy wreath of vivid pink roses, and underneath 
was written in violet ink: 

Rose is red and violet 's blue. 
Sugar 's sweet and so are you, 
If you love me as I love you. 
No knife can cut our love in two. 

Sam told me that for many days, even in the middle 
of cooking dinner, Josephine would get out her valen- 
tine, pull the string that made the wreath come forward 
and the hearts overlap, and breathe a deep sigh of 



94 My Beloved South 

ecstasy, then put it back with a few stray bits of dried 
vegetables into her table drawer until the next blissful 
moment to look at it arrived; and ever afterwards it 
was her most treasured possession. 

Never going out and never spending any money for 
many years, Josephine had saved a considerable sum 
and was quite well off for a woman in her position, so 
Silas was an impatient bridegroom and the future bride 
fixed an early wedding day. All the family gave her 
useful and excellent presents: linen sheets and pillow 
cases, a quantity of towels, nice curtains, kitchen 
utensils, and to these mother added a whole set of 
bedroom furniture. 

Then a day came when all the meals were full of red 
pepper and absolutely uneatable. Also the bride 
elect was seen to go restlessly up and down stairs at 
least a dozen times — a thing that had never occurred 
in all the years she had lived with us. After supper 
she and a very cruel plaited black cowhide whip with 
an end of knife-like sharpness, which some friend had 
sent Sam from Texas, disappeared together. A " grape- 
vine telegram" had reached her about Silas, and she 
waddled off to verify it. Perhaps she was not greatly 
surprised to find him sitting in a small cosy house with 
a very black lady by his side, presumably his wife, or 
as the darkies say, "a lady friend." Josephine was a 
very large woman, extremely muscular and strong. 
She had never been the least bit angry in all her life, 
but now that she was roused, there was an enormous 
accumulation of temper on hand and she was like an 
elephant gone amok. 

She stormed the room of the Silas Bundys', gave him 
a cut with the keen lash of the whip across the face, 
severing the skin from the flesh, nearly blinding him. 



Christmas and Old Memories 95 

She then touched up Mrs. Silas, who ran screaming 
into the yard; and after the Silas Bundys there fol- 
lowed through the open door a perfect avalanche of 
china, ^^lass, pictures and furniture. George Wash- 
ington and Lincoln were ruined for ever by splinters of 
glass which scratched their faces. Silas and Mrs. 
Bundy were also gashed and bleeding from cut-glass 
goblets thrown with unerring aim. Then Josephine 
went upstairs; and the wardrobe of Mrs. Bundy, torn 
and fluttering in the breeze, with jugs and basins and 
ripped-up mattresses, looking-glasses, Silas Bundy 's 
best clothes tattered and torn to bits, and pillows 
emptied of their feathers, all wildly descended through 
the window into the garden. 

The frightened screams of the Bundys, or the crash 
of falling furniture, or the clouds of feathers floating 
out upon the night attracted the notice of the police, 
and eventually they arrived at the gutted house, 
arrested Josephine, and with tufts of feathers clinging 
to their fine uniforms, escorted her home at ten o'clock 
for mother to go her bail. If a miracle had been per- 
formed, the family could not have been more surprised. 
That the quiet, sweet-tempered, amiable and conser- 
vative Josephine should have wounded and beaten 
husband and wife and demolished the contents of an 
entire house was unbelievable, incomprehensible. The 
policemen said the wreck looked like the work of a 
cyclone or tornado. Josephine's eyes were of a deep 
red and the black whip which she carried was quite 
moist and had a suspicious substance clinging to it that 
might have been and probably was human skin. 

When the day for her trial came, Josephine, escorted 
by mother, went to court. A good lawyer was em- 
ployed for the defence. Silas and Mrs. Bundy, with 



96 My Beloved South 

their wounds neatly dressed, appeared against her. 
Our lawyer made an excellent defence, giving a short 
account of the blameless and amiable existence of the 
faithful servant, and her many years of devoted service. 
He described in glowing terms the blackguardism of 
the would-be bigamist, sitting there in smug compla- 
cency by the side of his already one too many wife. 
Mother was genuinely anxious, for she really loved 
poor sorry Josephine. 

The Judge, an old friend of the family, with a sense 
of humour, turned to her and said, "Josephine Paschal, 
what have you got to say for yourself?" Josephine, 
the poor violent, destructive, faithful elephant, looked 
at the Judge with imploring eyes, the corners of her 
mouth turned down like a yellow baby about to cry, 
and for a moment made no answer. Then bursting 
into tears, she covered her face with her nice clean apron, 
rocked her huge bulk violently backwards and forwards 
and said, " I ain't got nothin' to say, 'ceptin' I wants my 
Silas Bundy — I des wants my Silas Bundy, my Silas 
Bundy." 

The whole court room was convulsed with laughter, 
but Josephine got off without even a fine, while Silas 
Bundy left the court a vainer man than when he entered 
it. 

I said, after I had finished my coffee, "How it all 
comes back to me now, although I have n't thought of 
it for years! Poor Josephine!" 

"And," said Sam, "although Josephine continued 
to be a splendid cook, the light of her life had gone out 
for ever with Bundy. I don't think she was ever quite 
the same again. One night when the alligator had 
grown too big for me to carry upstairs, she carried him 
up for me, put him in the bathtub and absent-mindedly 



Christmas and Old Memories 97 

turned on the hot water and he was scalded to death. 
Then my heart was quite broken. For there never was 
such a temperamental alligator, so affectionate, so 
sensible, and so handsome. Poor Josephine, she never 
saw Bundy again, but she was faithful to the family 
until her death." 



CHAPTER VII 

CHARLES TOWN AND WASHINGTON 

The man who melts 

With social sympathy, though not allied, 

Is than a thousand kinsmen of more worth. 

Euripides. 

WE talked over various places for my after cure, and 
I decided on Charles Town, West Virginia. I 
had heard of its quaintness, and old-time charm, and I 
knew the weather would be real West Virginia weather, 
crisp, frosty, and delicious. Luckily for me my faithful 
Bee had not the heart to let me go alone, and arranged 
that we should take the afternoon train which reached 
Charles Town about six o'clock. Dr. Venning met us 
at the station and advised Miss Anna Hughes's Sana- 
torium. Usually it is a place for active work, as many 
operations are performed there, but at the moment it 
was unusually quiet. 

I had a delightful bedroom, a little sitting-room, and 
a bathroom all on the first floor. The weather was 
not too cold for us to walk and drive about the country. 
Bee is born to imderstand and love the whole animal 
world, but horses are her first favourites, and she is an 
excellent whip. When she went to the stable the livery 
man, in the process of harnessing the horse to the buggy, 
said, "You 've got a good horse here; Maud ain't got 
but one fault in the world and that she can't help." 

"What 's that?" said Bee. 

98 



Charles Town, West Virginia 99 

"Well," said the livery man, "she 's ugly. She was 
born ugly. She was an ugly colt, and she 's ugly now, 
but except for that she 's perfect and there ain't nothin' 
on earth that can scare her, neither automobile, nor 
train nor nothin'." 

And Maud was not only "ugly," she was uniquely 
ugly. A more singular looking animal cannot be 
imagined. She was evidently built for the present 
fashion, and could wear a hobble skirt with great 
success. I have never seen such a narrow figure, in 
fact her body looked like a brown almond set on four 
slim legs. Her head was immense and very bony, but 
she had large lovely eyes and as the livery man had 
said, Maud was sensible. Neither trains of cars, nor 
snorting motors made the slightest impression upon her. 

A special sense indeed seemed to be given to the 
horses of West Virginia, for Dr. Venning told me of an 
old negro who was driving leisurely across a railway 
track, and even a long train loaded with coal did not 
in the least hurry him, and when one of the cars touched 
and lifted the back of the cart, almost turning it over, the 
horse stood quite still, and the old negro looking around, 
called out angrily to the passing train, "You-all better 
min' out what you 're doing. I 'm goin' straight home 
and tell Marse John Carter de way what you is tryin' 
to destroy dis cart, and he' 11 come down here and gib' 
you a good and planty. He will so, I tell you dat right 
now." 

Charles Town was surveyed, laid out, and settled 
by Charles Washington, a brother of George Washing- 
ton. And the Washington house was its special point 
of interest, with a mantelpiece of fine carved marble, 
a gift from George Washington, and a twin to the 
dining-room mantelpiece in Mount Vernon. The old 



100 My Beloved South 

house, which still belongs to some member of the Wash- 
ington family, is now in the hands of a working manager, 
and though it has a park and noble trees, it is used 
only as a farm, and lacks the graces and distinction 
that a gentleman would give it. 

The little town lies high and is beautifully situated. 
It was in the Charles Town court house that John 
Brown was tried. He was hanged in a near-by field, 
now the site of a fine house of colonial architecture, 
which he is good enough not to haunt, at least they have 
never had any sign or token of his presence. Indeed 
if it had not been for the stirring song of "John Brown's 
body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul is 
marching on," I fear that he himself would occupy 
only a very small and indifferent part in history. 

One of the most historic, interesting, and beautiful 
old places around Charles Town is that of Mrs. Briscoe. 
It is a fine and exact copy of an old English mansion, 
a large square hall with a quaint staircase and wide 
generous rooms on either side. The beautifully pro- 
portioned drawing-room is papered with one of those 
charming hand-painted panelled papers depicting de- 
lightful Italian gardens, with swans and marble fount- 
ains, and vistas beyond the bluest lake, and deepest 
green of summer. In the hall there were some interest- 
ing portraits, one of General William Dark, the grand- 
father of William Dark Briscoe. He fought in the 
war of the Revolution and was taken prisoner and 
confined in a man-of-war outside Philadelphia. He 
said the English soldiers would shove him a bowl of 
soup and say, "There, drink, you rebel dog." 

Mrs. William Dark dressed herself as a cabin boy, 
tied her hair in a queue and got on board the ship to 
see her husband. According to a portrait she was a 



Charles Town, West Virginia loi 

slender, black-eyed, rosy-cheeked, daring young Vir- 
ginia lady. The commander of the English man-of- 
war had a keen eye for beauty and he discovered her 
sex almost immediately, but was so filled with admira- 
tion of her courage and daring, that when she left the 
ship, he gave her a chest filled with fine linen and lace. 
A remnant of the latter is still preserved as a family 
heirloom. Another portrait is of the child of this 
American Rosalind, a little girl with brown hair, neatly 
parted and worn in curls on either side of the face, her 
leaf-green gown trimmed with the historic lace, and a 
broad ribbon and locket round her neck. By the side 
of her portrait hangs the speech of Thomas Jefferson 
on his inauguration, printed on white satin and sent 
to the Briscoes by special messenger from Monticello. 
Among Mrs. Briscoe's treasures is a letter written 
on thick, faded yellow paper and folded after the old- 
fashioned manner to simulate an envelope. The red 
seals still dangle on it, and the handwriting is frank 
and boyish. It is addressed to Dr. John Briscoe, 
Birkshaugh, New Biggin, Cumberland, and the letter 
reads : 

OuDiHAM, September, 1663. 

To Dr. John Briscoe, 

Greeting : 
Dear Sir, 

As the privy council have decided that I shall not be 
disturbed or dispossessed of the charter granted by His 
Majesty, the Ark and the Pinnace Dove will sail from 
Gravesend about the first of October. And if you are of 
the same mind as when I conversed with you I would be 
glad to have you join the colony. 
With high esteem, 

Your most obedient servant, 

Cecilius Baltimore. 



102 My Beloved South 

Dr. Briscoe was of the same mind and sailed with 
Lord Baltimore for America and settled in Virginia, 
where the Briscoe family have lived ever since and 
have taken firm root, for I think I never saw people 
love a home more. Dr. John Briscoe's wife asked to 
be buried so that she could look towards the house, and 
there is a little shaft of granite in the garden where she 
wished it placed. 

America instilled a strong love in her colonists. It 
is no infrequent thing to find an old tomb in the beau- 
tiful garden of a Southern plantation which marks the 
resting-place of a former owner who wished ever to 
sleep among the flowers he loved so well. There are 
fine old trees around the Briscoe place, a bountiful 
spring bubbles up to the right of the house and forms 
a pool, upon which ducks lead their little broods for 
their first swim. The water is clear as crystal, is ice 
cold, and by the side of this spring stands the spring 
house where milk, watermelons, and fruits are kept 
cool on the hottest summer day. In this little town, as 
in England, the young and adventurous leave for the 
larger cities, but there are men and women in the 
distant parts of America who look back to their child- 
hood in Charles Town with affection, and whose tenderest 
memory is connected with the old Briscoe mansion, the 
blossoming apple and peach orchard and the deep sweet 
spring. Even the stranger finds a warm welcome and 
hospitality from the gentle chatelaine within that gate. 

Another house that greatly interested me was 
"Claymont," where Frank Stockton wrote so many of 
his dclighful books. It belonged originally to Bushrod 
Washington, a nephew of George Washington. Mr. 
Stockton paid thirty or forty thousand dollars for the 
place, made enough money to cultivate and improve 



Charles Town, West Virginia 103 

it, and left a considerable fortune, for humour always 
commands its price. Dr. Venning, who was his 
friend as well as his physician, told me he was a firm 
believer in realism, and at one time when he was in 
New York he called on a noted surgeon, sent in his 
name, and when he was admitted to the consulting- 
room said: "Doctor, I didn't come to see you about 
myself, I came to consult you about a very dear friend 
of mine who has met with an accident. He was 
knocked down on Broadway, suffered a fracture of 
the skull, and is now in hospital. I am here to ask 
your further advice for him." 

The surgeon stiffened, and said, "I have not seen 
your friend, Mr. Stockton; but even if I had, medical 
etiquette forbids that I should interfere with the treat- 
ment of the other physicians at the hospital." 

"Well, doctor," said Frank Stockton, with a whim- 
sical smile, "to tell you the truth, the man is a hero 
of mine in a book I am writing; and now that I have 
got him in hospital I don't know how the dickens to 
cure his wound and get him out again. Perhaps you 
would n't mind helping me." 

"Oh, in that event," said the surgeon, "I am entirely 
at your disposal." So he dressed the wound, there 
were no complications following, the man rapidly got 
well, and he was out of hospital before Mr. Stockton 
left the surgeon's house. 

"Now," said Mr. Stockton, "You have treated with 
unsurpassed skill my friend's terrible accident, roused 
him from unconsciousness and effected a wonderful 
cure, so I must pay you his fee." 

The doctor said, "I coiild n't think of such a thing." 
But the writer insisted, and left his fee upon the 
surgeon's table. 



104 My Beloved South 

Frank Stockton was a small, delicate, frail man, 
whose body was not equal to his active, creative mind. 
I know no books that have given me purer joy than his. 
He has a charming style of his own, and his humour is 
inimitable and natural. Take, for example, the begin- 
ning of The House of Martha. A precise, exact, comfort- 
loving young man, makes a long tour in England and 
on the continent. He was not at all fond of travelling, 
and it was the anticipation of telling his provincial 
friends who had never crossed the ocean, what he had 
seen and done, rather than a love of adventure, which 
caused his protracted journeyings. But when he 
returned to the friendly, self-centred New England 
village, nobody was in the least interested in listening 
to him. As soon as he began to describe Windsor 
Castle to a neighbour, the lady interrupted him with 
an account of a blizzard from which the village had 
suffered while he was away, and he found that Holyrood, 
Mary Stuart, and the blood-stain of Rizzio, were nothing 
in comparison to the founding of the free Kindergarten ; 
the Venus of Milo and the Arc de Triomphe paled into 
insignificance beside the troubles of Jane and Adelaide 
who had to go without music lessons for nearly ten 
days on account of measles in the family. There was 
one person left, who he knew, would listen to him with 
appreciation — the grandmother who had taken his 
mother's place. But when he described to her his 
three days in the forest of Arden, and the veritable 
Jaques he met there, even her attention wandered 
and she remarked: "That must have been extremely 
interesting. Speaking of woods, I wish you would say 
to Thomas that I want him to bring some of that rich 
wood soil, and put it round the geraniums nearest the 
house." This was the last straw. But the traveller, 



Charles Town, West Virginia 105 

gifted with a dogged perseverance, inserted in a Boston 
paper this advertisement. "Wanted ... a respect- 
able and intelhgent person wilHng to devote several 
hours a day to the recitals of a traveller. Address, 
stating compensation expected. Oral." 

Now, who has not experienced in life, at some time 
or other, a very great disappointment in a listener? I 
know on many occasions I have started out with enthu- 
siasm on what I considered a humorous story and in a 
few moments I have found that nobody was paying 
the slightest attention, and that the person I had most 
relied upon for appreciation had herself begun another 
story, and everybody was listening to her. The art of 
a good listener is indeed a rare one. I never saw its 
absence more markedly demonstrated than once in 
London, when a friend told a really witty story and 
told it well. Suddenly a lady who had not heard a 
word of it, turned vague and empty, though kind eyes, 
towards the company and said, "That was funny, 
was n't it? It reminds me of a story I know." And 
she proceeded to tell the same story from beginning to 
end, leaving out the point entirely. She never knew why 
it was greeted with such uproarious laughter, thinking, 
of course, that she had made an enormous success. 

Beside Frank Stockton's humour, which was original 
and unexpected, he wrote with remarkable charm. 
How poetical is this little paragraph from The Late Mrs. 
Null: 

There are times in the life of a man when the goddess 
of Reasonable Impulse raises her arms above her head, and 
allows herself a little yawn; then she takes off her crown 
and hangs it on the back of her throne, after which she 
rests her sceptre on the floor, and, rising, stretches herself 
to her full height, and goes forth to take a long refreshing 



io6 My Beloved South 

walk by the waters of Unreflection. Then her minister 
Prudence stretches himself upon a bench and with his 
handkerchief over his eyes, composes himself for a nap. 
Discretion, Wordly Wisdom, and even sometimes that agile 
page called Memory, no sooner see their royal mistress 
depart, than, by various doors, they leave the palace and 
wander far away. 

Then, silently, with sparkling eyes and parted lips, comes 
that fair being Unthinking Love. She puts one foot upon 
the lower step of the throne, she looks about her, and with 
a quick bound she seats herself. Upon her tumbled curls 
she hastily puts a crown, with her small white hand she 
grasps the sceptre, then, rising, waves it and issues her 
commands. The crowd of emotions which serve her as 
satellites seize the great seal from the sleeping Prudence, 
and the new Queen reigns. 

If there has been a time in the life of a man or a 
woman, when Reasonable Impulse has not been sup- 
planted by Unthinking Love, then I am sorry for them, 
for they have missed much. Everyone, young or old, 
should have some little green and fragrant memory 
hidden away from the world, of spontaneous impulse, 
of surprised, uncalculating love. 

Dr. Venning is a bold motorist and we had long drives 
along the banks of the Shenandoah, that river so closely 
associated with the great soldier, whose legion stood 
a wall of stone, in the fiercest fire of the enemy. "Do 
you," I said, "remember the old war poem about 
Stonewall Jackson?" "Yes," said Dr. Venning, "I 
used to recite it with martial effect when a boy " 

Come! stack arms, men! Pile on the rails 

Stir up the camp fires bright, 
No matter if the canteen fails, 

Wc '11 make a roaring night. 



Charles Town, West Virginia 107 

Here Shenandoah brawls along, 
There lofty Blue Ridge echoes strong 
To swell the brigade's rousing song 
Of "Stonewall Jackson's Way." 

We see him now — the old slouched hat 

Cocked o'er his eye askew; 
The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, 

So calm, so blunt, so true. 
The "Blue Light Elder" knows them well; 
Says he, "That 's Banks— he 's fond of shell; 
Lord save his soul; we '11 give him — " well 

That 's " Stonewall Jackson's Way. " 

Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off! 

Old Blue Light's going to pray; 
Strangle the fool who dares to scoff! 

Attention! it 's his way; 
Appealing from his native sod, 

In forma pauperis to God — 
Lay bare thine arm, stretch forth thy rod; 

Amen! That 's "Stonewall Jackson's Way." 

He 's in the saddle now. "Fall in! 

Steady ! the whole brigade ! 
Hill 's at the ford, cut off! We '11 win 

His way out ball and blade. 
What matter if our shoes are worn? 
What matter if our feet are torn? 
Quick step ! we 're with him ere the mom. " 

That 's "Stonewall Jackson's way." 

The sun's bright glances rout the mists 

Of morning — and, by George! 
There 's Longstreet struggHng in the Hsts, 

Hemmed in an ugly gorge. 



io8 My Beloved South 

Pope and his columns whipped before, 
"Bay 'nets and grape!" hear Stonewall roar; 
"Charge Stuart! pay off Ashby's score!" 
Is "Stonewall Jackson's Way." 

Ah ! maiden, wait and watch and yearn 

For news of Stonewall's band; 
Ah! widow, read with eyes that bum 

That ring upon thy hand. 
Ah I wife, sew on, pray on, hope on, 
Thy life shall not be all forlorn ; 
The foe had better ne'er been bom 

Than get in "Stonewall's Way." 

If there was no road the little car responded to the 
hand of Dr. Venning and skimmed over bumps and 
hollows like a swallow. Can there be, in all the world, 
more beautiful waters than the Shenandoah? The 
Indians thought the origin divine, and indeed it came 
by its name through an almost miraculous happening. 

Late in his life a girl child was bom to a great chief, 
and she grew up as perfect as though sculptured by a 
master hand in bronze. Her head and throat were 
nobly fashioned, and her round limbs were super- 
humanly agile. Her long, black, silky hair was of 
great thickness and extraordinary length, and the 
scarlet blood of an open-air existence mantled itself 
like damask roses in her lips and cheeks. She was not 
only beautiful but accomplished, for she could send an 
arrow from the bow to rival Diana, and there was never 
a fisherman so wily or so lucky as she. The name of 
this beautiful goddess was Shenandoah, and the tribe 
of Indians to which she belonged lived near a crystal- 
clear, low-singing, swiftly-flowing nameless river. It 
was rich in many varieties of fish, but especially re- 



Charles Town, West Virginia 109 

nowned for its bass, and one fish was bigger, handsomer, 
and more crafty than all the rest. He was frequently- 
seen apparently trying to guide a reckless youngster 
away from a seductively cruel morsel. If he ever cast 
his knowing eye in the direction of bait it was only to 
frown and to warn. 

Shenandoah respected his wisdom but was ambitious 
to catch him. She had been fishing for many days 
and he had been busy keeping guard. In a fatigued 
moment he was seen in a deep pool, near the bottom 
of the river, apparently taking a nap, for his watch- 
ful eyes were closed and he lay without movement. 
Shenandoah, as noiseless as a still summer day, raised 
herself to her full height, stretched out her perfect 
arms and pointed hands, and suddenly cut the water 
like an unerring knife. When she rose again to the 
surface, it was with the struggling fish clasped to her 
bosom with muscles of steel, but she could not land 
without hands, so she swam down to a depth shallow 
enough for her to stand upright. Her father, returning 
from his day's hunt, found her on the bank of the river 
with the big fish balanced in her strong arms above 
her sleek head. A splash, and the bass slowly swam 
out to mid-stream. The great chief asked why 
she had set free her longed-for prize, and she said he 
looked at her with human eyes that said, "It was 
not fair sport, you took advantage of me while I 
slept. You are no Indian." She could not stand 
this reproach so she returned him to the waters. But 
the big fish was never seen again. Perhaps he died 
of mortification from such an extraordinary unfishlike 
experience. 

The next day there was a great gathering to cele- 
brate her prowess, and with impressive ceremony the 



no My Beloved South 

river was named after the beautifiil woods woman, 
"Shenandoah." 

The clear water comes rushing through from the 
heart of the mountain bringing with it cool and refresh- 
ing air, as it winds along the side of the Blue Ridge. 
Its loftiest crags are where the eagle builds its nest, 
and at evening the hunter sees the wild deer drinking 
from its swift water, while miniature fountains and 
wreaths of crystal are sent high up in the ambient air 
by great rocks that bar its swift progress. The Shen- 
andoah has had many illustrious lovers — Washington, 
and Jackson, and Jefferson, all appreciated its beauties, 
and every Virginian loves it and the legend connected 
with it. 

After my week in Charles Town I was able to travel, 
and, on my way to South Carolina, stayed some days 
in Washington, that fair city which even in winter has 
the appearance of spring, with its endless avenues of 
trees, many of them evergreen, and numerous grassy 
squares of late blooming flowers. In spring and summer, 
with every shrub in leaf and every flower in blossom 
and the streets a sea of unbroken green, it is like a 
great emerald. Governor Shepherd's plans have been 
carried out — broad avenues, fine streets, all the old 
trees saved and rows of new ones planted. When 
finished it will be one of the most beautiful cities in 
the world and it is to be hoped it will always keep 
its independent character, southern atmosphere and 
individual habits and customs. 

In the summer there is no prettier sight in the 
evenings than an open street-car going Chevy Chase 
way, looking as if it had suddenly broken into blossom, 
with its freight of hatless women and girls, clothed in 
fresh diaphanous white. And on the warmest days 



Beautiful Washington in 

it is quite ordinary to meet ladies going to market or 
shopping with a pretty parasol for a head covering, 
instead of a hat. The market in Washington used to 
be quite a rendezvous in the morning. The men of 
the family, if they take an interest in the cuisine, often 
go to select some particularly toothsome delicacy, 
and whenever a man takes an interest in the table there 
is sure to be good cooking. Even a poet assures us, that 

Man may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving, 
He may live without love — what is passion but pining, 
But where is the man that can live without dining ?" 

Cooks somehow are always more flattered by the 
praise of a man than that of a woman and men will 
not put up with bad cooking, also, they have the ad- 
vantage of being permitted to swear. I have often 
thought a Swearer in a woman's club, who could be 
called upon to express what a woman feels but dare not 
say when a dreadful dish is put before her, would be 
most useful. For the office he would require a stento- 
rian voice, a fluent vocabulary, and prompt, efficient 
action. 

One of my red-letter days in Washington, I met Mrs. 
Champ Clark at the Burlesons. She is, as all the world 
knows, the wife of the Speaker of the House. But 
with her strong personality, she is so much more than 
that. It is difficult to describe a woman different from 
all other women, and more difficult still to get a right 
perspective if she has taken by storm your heart, your 
intelligence, and your sense of humour. Mrs. Clark 
herself does n't look in the least humorous. On the 
contrary, with her very slim, erect, graceful figure, her 
white face and burning dark eyes, she appears more 
like a tragic muse, for the sorrow of the world weighs 



112 My Beloved South 

upon her. I wonder whether happiness would not be 
quite impossible for a sensitive human being — if, with 
a heart to feel and a keen realisation of the cruel wrongs 
and incurable miseries of humanity, every personal 
wish could be gratified? 

This distinguished lady says of herself: "I was the 
youngest of seven children and they all waited on me, 
and petted me. I had the happiest sort of childhood 
and then I married Champ, and all the world knows 
what a husband he is — perfect, as they go. And my 
children are satisfactory; both of them have brought 
themselves up well. So what have I to cast me down 
and darken my spirit? The golden rule of 'Do as you 
would be done by,' and 'Love thy neighbour as thy- 
self, ' — if I had my life to live over again how I would 
flout and trample those mistaken rules! Now I 've 
formed a habit of caring for others and it 's too late. 
I 've always got the poor, the unfortunate, and the 
failures on my back. I 've always got a Civil Service 
list of women waiting to get into office through my 
persuasive influence, and I 've always girls on hand to 
recommend for all kinds of occupations ; I may hesitate 
to ask for something for a woman, but I can refuse a 
girl nothing. You see my Genevieve is a girl, a tender 
sensitive girl. Suppose she wanted work, so sweet 
and modest and pretty and old-fashioned as she is, 
she could n't get it for herself, and if somebody refused 
to help her? Sometimes I do get physically, mortally 
tired. Then I say ' Genevieve,' just a whisper of her 
name, and I go on and do what I can. I 've a sort of 
feeling that what I do for the poor and the needy will 
in some way come back to my child. It 's her heritage 
from me." 

What a touching legacy, the love of a mother who 



Beautiful Washington 113 

lifts up the weak-hearted, comforts the afflicted, and 
succours strug£:Hng womankind, for the sake of her 
daughter! Surely the beautiful inheritance of sweet 
Genevieve will not end here, but continue where 
"neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves 
do not break through nor steal." 

I said, "Take care not to overdo your good work, 
you are none too strong; and think of all your duties 
for the coming winter." (The Speaker of the House of 
Representatives has really as much power as the 
President, and his wife is an overwhelmingly busy 
woman.) 

"I know," she said, "I know; and if I can just get 
two women that I have on my hands now into one of 
the government departments I 'm going to give myself 
a rest." 

"No, you won't," said Adele Burleson, Mrs. Clark's 
great friend, and one of the wisest and cleverest little 
women in Washington. "You '11 have somebody else 
on hand." 

"No," said Mrs. Clark. "If I can only land these 
two I won't bother anybody for a long time. !Mr. 
Burleson, why don't you help me?" 

Albert said, " I 've done all I can, neither of the women 
is qualified for the Civil Service. You know that." 

''Qualified!'' said Mrs. Clark scornfully. "They've 
got to live, and I believe sometimes they are hungry. 
Oh, it 's weary work, I tell you. Champ's secretary 
has written letters for me, and I 've made that nice 
secretary of yours, Ruskin McArdle, who does all the 
things you ought to do and don't do, write in your 
behalf, and I get nothing done!" 

"Has Ruskin been writing in my name?" asked 
Albert. 



114 My Beloved South 

"He has," said Mrs. Clark, "a beautiful letter in 
which he spoke of the service of the lady's father to 
his country." 

"No," said Albert, "I wrote that letter." 

"Then," said Mrs. Clark, "what 's the use of being 
the prominent member from Texas if your letters have 
no effect?" 

Albert said, "How long have you had this lady on 
your hands?" 

"Long enough," said Mrs. Clark, "nearly to give 
me nervous prostration. You and Champ must storm 
the departments. I must get her something to do; 
I tell you I must. I '11 introduce her to you." 

"No," said Albert, "not for anything in the world." 

Mrs. Clark replied, "I 've introduced her to Ruskin; 
he thinks she 's a dear woman." 

Adele remarked, "If Albert knew her, he's easily 
touched, — she would have him working as hard for her 
as you do." 

"Then," said Mrs. Clark, "some day I '11 surprise 
him with an introduction." 

Long ago it would have been the easiest thing in the 
world for a woman of influence and importance to 
place a clerk in Washington. A word would have done 
it, but that time has passed and now, as in England, 
everything must go by routine. 

AdMe and I were lunching at the Capitol with Mrs. 
Clark and I overheard her say in the Speaker's Gallery: 
"Now why did you order such an elaborate menu?" 

"She's English," said Mrs. Clark, speaking of me; 
"I was n't going to have her think we came from the 
creek." 

I leaned over and said, "I don't know where you 
came from, but I really did come from the creek, — 



Beautiful Washington 115 

Waller's Creek in Texas. Not a very big creek, and 
not always a wet creek, but that is where I came from. 
Adele, now, is more aristocratic; she came from Onion 
Creek, — there 's always water there." 

Mrs. Clark called me up on the telephone one morn- 
ing to ask if I had ever read Henry James' The Liars, 
and, abbreviating the story, she told it to me in Henry 
James's own language; all his expressions, all his subtle- 
ties, all his exquisiteness came fluently through the 
telephone, an instrument which he resents and abomi- 
nates. I laughed so constantly I could scarcely hold 
the receiver. Mrs. Clark is an omnivorous reader and, 
what one rarely finds, a truly enthusiastic one. She is 
an ardent admirer of the genius of Thomas Hardy. 
"Oh," she said, "when I was in England, how I did 
enjoy meeting him! I said to him, 'Mr. Hardy, you 
have made me feel everything that your heroines felt. 
I 've even felt everything that your villains felt ! I 've 
loved and suffered and sinned with everyone of your 
creations. I 've gone to the scaffold with Tess, and 
I 've died with Elfrida. You have given me the 
gamut of all the emotions. ' We talked for hours, I 
could scarcely bring myself to leave him." 

And I can imagine how this fresh, original, great- 
hearted, unspoiled, frank, natural woman, must have 
impressed Thomas Hardy. What an appetising morsel 
she would be for jaded London society. In the express- 
ive vernacular of the stage, "They would eat her." 

Champ Clark, brilliant and witty, has a way of 
making unforgettable phrases. I asked him why a 
certain very talented member of Congress had no 
following. "Well," said he, "his opinion and his 
morals are in a fluid condition. You can't take hold 
of him any more than you can of water." 



ii6 My Beloved South 

"That not only describes him," I said, "but a few 
other poHticians of my acquaintance." 

My days in Washington were all too short. I wanted 
the sunshine of the South, and yet the idea of going 
alone was distinctly depressing. One evening Mary 
Clark — I was staying with her — came into my room 
and said, "Bessiekins, I am going to let Bee go with 
you to Charleston if you really want her." If I wanted 
Bee — who is such a comfort, so companionable, and 
unselfish. I breathed a great sigh of relief, and at 
once gave myself into her capable hands. She intended 
to get a new kodak, and to finish some shelves in the 
pantry before we started. "And," she said, "you 
want to see Mr. Page before you go, about your Beloved 
South, don't you?" 

"Yes," I said, "I do." 

"Then," she replied, "we can leave on Thursday 
evening, unless you don't mind Friday." 

"Friday," I said, "has no terrors for me; Monday is 
my 'black Friday.' I was born on that da}^" 

"All right," said Bee, who has no superstitions, 
"we will start on Friday night." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SYMBOL OF THE SOUTH 

Then — in that day — we shall not meet 

Wrong with new wrong, but right with right: 

Our faith shall make your faith complete 
When our battalions reunite. 

THOMAS NELSON PAGE has served his country 
well. He built at a propitious moment a bridge 
between the North and the South. The first great 
arch was laid with those touching pages of realism, 
Marse Chan.' At that time a gulf, not of bitterness, 
but of coldness and indifference, separated us. He 
spanned it with stories of the Old South, so true to life, 
so gracious, so full of tenderness that the hearts of the 
North imderstood — and warmed toward us. We w^ere 
grateful for their appreciation, — and the bridge was 
builded. When I read Marse Chan' to Henry Ward 
Beecher, he said, "I should regret the War less if 
Marse Chan' had been spared; Page must be a first- 
rate fellow to have written that story," 

He is more than "a first-rate fellow" — he is a high- 
minded gentleman, and a staunch American. How 
patriotically he expresses his enthusiasm: 

I have journeyed the spacious world over 
And here to thy sapphire wide gate, 

America, I, thy True Lover 
Return now, exalted, elate, 

As an heir who returns to recover 
His forefathers' lofty estate. 
117 



ii8 My Beloved South 

How crude then and rude then soever 
Thy struggles to Hft from the sod, 

Thy Freedom is strong to dissever 
The Shackles, the Yoke, and the Rod: 

Thy Freedom is Mighty forever, 
For men who kneel only to God. 

Even our ambassadors do not bend the knee to 
kings and princes, they only bend the back. I should 
like Mr. Page to represent our country at some Euro- 
pean court. My prophetic vision sees him the most 
popular ambassador since the time of Mr. Ix>well, 
when he gathered around him a coterie of brilliant 
literary men and inspired Henry James to carve deli- 
cately one of his most exc]uisite literary cameos. Mr. 
Page is richer than Mr. Lowell, who was a widower, in 
having the able assistance of his wife. Mrs. Page is a 
charming lady and an ideal hostess, with the easy hospi- 
tality of a woman born to the purple. He himself has 
the gracious manner of a citizen of the world, but it 
never conceals his real tenderness of heart and he is the 
most loyal, disinterested, and encouraging of friends. 

"I think," he said, "the binding of My Beloved South 
had better be dark blue, with a spray of jessamine on 
the cover," 

"No, I am not going to have yellow jessamine," I 
said, "much as I love it, but something more character- 
istic of all of that devoted land, something to express 
the life of the South from Virginia to the Gulf, from 
Texas to the Pacific." 

"That 's ambitious," asked Tom Page, "what is it 
to be?" 

"A palm leaf fan," I answered. 

" It is n't a bad idea," he said, "even in the War they 
had jDalm leaf fans." 



The Palm Leaf Fan 119 

For myself I have never been without one. Very 
Hkely mine is the only one in London. It is kept in a 
special drawer, and often in the cold, dark, sleepless 
nights, as the raw, grey dawn penetrates my room, I 
will get out of bed, take from its place my old palm 
leaf fan and lay my tired head upon its uneven surface. 
It seems to give me a moment's comfort when nothing 
else can, for it speaks of sunshine, of the magnolia, of 
the banjo, that oldest of musical instruments, born in 
the Ark and listened to by Noah : 

De Ark she kep' a-sailin' an' a-sailin' an' a-sailin'; 

De lion got his dander up, an' like to bruk de palin'; 
De sarpints hissed; de painters yelled; till, what wid all de 
fussin' 

You c'u'd n't hear de mate a-bossin' roun* an' cussin.' 

Now, Ham, de only nigger what wuz runnin' on de packet, 

Got lonesome in de barber-shop an' c'u'd n't stan' de 

racket ; 

An' so, fur to amuse he-se'f, he steamed some wood an' 

bent it, 

An' soon he had a banjo made, de fust dat wuz invented. 

He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridges, screws 

an' aprin; 

An' fitted in a proper neck, 'twas berry long an' taperin' ; 

He tuk some tin, an' twisted him a thimble fur to ring it ; 

An' den de mighty question riz, how wuz he gwine to 

string it? 

De possum has as fine a tail as dis dat I 's a singin'; 
De ha'r 's so long an' thick an' strong, des fit fur banjo 
stringin', 
Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as wash-day dinner 
graces ; 
An' sorted ob dem by de size, f'om little E's to basses. 



120 My Beloved South 

He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig, 't was ' Nebber 
min' de wedder, ' 
She soun' Hke forty-lebben bands a-playin' all togeder; 
Some went to pattin', some to dancin', Noah called de 
figgers 
An' Ham he sot and knocked de tune, de happiest ob de 
niggers. 

Now, sence dat time, it 's mighty strange, dere 's not de 
sHghtest showin', 
Ob any h'ar at all upon de 'possum's tail a-growin'; 
An curi's too, dat nigger's ways; his people nebber' los' 
em'. 
Fur whar you find de nigger, dar's de banjo an' de 
possum. 

My old fan dissipates the Lx^ndon fog, and conjures 
a picture of Aunt Polly Hynes and Aunt Lizzie, rocking 
slowly in their light cane chairs and fanning themselves 
on the long gallery that ran across the entire length of 
my old home in Texas. My mother sat there, too, 
with her fan, which was of a more sublimated pattern 
than the others, for it was made of a young, tender leaf, 
finely sewn at the edge, and mounted on an ivory- 
handle with a tiny hole at the bottom through which a 
green silk tassel was looped, and where the ivory joined 
the leaf it was finished by a little carved rosette of 
mother-of-pearl. But I love just the ordinary palm 
leaf fan that is bought for a picayune. Its office has 
often been beyond rubies and pearls, in saving the 
sick, comforting the dying, and making life bearable 
on the hottest days to the living. On every gallery 
when summer comes numbers of these fans appear. 
In all the churches they are slipped in between the 
cushion and the pew, and they can even be found in the 
dear old musty Court Houses throughout the South. 



The Palm Leaf Fan 121 

On one occasion they not only cooled the air but 
were more intimidating than a regiment of soldiers to 
a renowned prelate. An English bishop, a tall, erect, 
downright man, called "the Soldiers' Bishop" on 
account of his influence with the soldier-man, came to 
America to deliver a series of sermons throughout the 
South. While in New Orleans the weather turned 
suddenly hot, and when he ascended the pulpit, what 
was his consternation to find a vast sea of movement 
all over the church. Every woman, young and old, 
wafted a palm-leaf fan. The grandmothers were 
making a soft sideways movement, the girls, rebellious 
at the sudden rise in temperature, were waving their 
fans back and forth vigorously, while some very old 
ladies made almost a pause between their movements, 
and there was no spot of repose to be found for his 
bewildered eyes. The Soldier Bishop said that for a 
moment he was dreadfully perturbed, felt frightened 
and, indeed, rather sea-sick. He even ingloriously 
contemplated retreating from the pulpit, leaving the 
fans victorious on the field of battle. Then he stood 
quite still, shut his eyes, offered up a stout prayer for 
endurance, and got creditably through his sermon. 
A Southern clergyman, brought up from infancy to 
the fan habit, would probably not even have noticed 
this undulating sea of creamy waves. 

Every Southern woman must carry some memory 
in her heart connected with this dried, brittle, but 
blessed and grateful leaf. Girls of sixteen have used 
it, young mothers have fanned their first babies with 
it, grandmothers sitting on moonlit porches have 
brought back the memories of a lifetime with its slowly 
waving motion. Even the gravest and most dignified 
governors and judges have been driven to its help in 



122 My Beloved South 

torrid weather. There is, indeed, no nook or corner 
in the South where at one time or another, it has not 
been an almost vital necessity. 

At one time in Texas we had — an unusual thing for 
us — a spell of terribly, unceasingly hot weather. The 
sun s ink to rest a brazen shield, leaving the earth 
baked and cracked like a pie crust; it rose the next 
morning a blazing eye of unrelenting fire, and continued 
unblinking throughout the long day. Old people died 
from exhaustion, middle-aged people suffered, young 
people were excitable and impatient, and the poor 
little children were simply scorched out of existence by 
this dreadful tropical weather. 

The first little baby of a young cousin of mine who 
lived on the adjoining place, was taken suddenly very 
ill. The doctor was almost hopeless about the child's 
recovery, and said it depended on a change in the 
weather. For a fortnight we had gone on merely 
existing under this cruelly devastating sun. What was 
to be done? The young mother, pale and wan from 
the heat, was in despair, but the negro foster-mother, 
a strong, vigorous young woman, said, "Ef dat 's all 
dc trouble; ef it 's coolness dat 's wanted I 'se gwine 
to save dis chile." And giving orders to a little darkey 
in the room, she said, "Bring me a bucket of cold 
water, and drap it deep in de well." And into the fresh 
water she dipped a wide palm-leaf fan, and began 
slowly, evenly, and continually, to make a cool moist 
breeze from the baby's hot head to his little restless 
feet. 

Except to nurse him she never stopped the flail-like 
movement for thirty-six hours. The fan was dipped 
again and again into the water, and on and on it went 
in its regularity of movement, keeping down the fever, 



The Palm Leaf Fan 123 

and letting the child get an occasional hour or two of 
sleep. 

Late in the evening of the second day came a merci- 
ful thunder storm. The heavens were riven with 
lightning and peals of thunder sounded like heavy 
artillery. The sky opened and let down, not rain, 
but great waterfalls of cooling water. The outsides 
of the houses were washed clean. The cracks of the 
baked earth were filled with the blessed fluid. The 
creeks began to murmur, and in a few hours the dry 
beds of stream became roaring torrents. The air 
rapidly cooled, and the baby was out of danger, but 
when his black mammy dropped the fan her arm was 
the size of a human leg; the muscles stood out swollen 
and rigid, and her hand was almost paralysed. The 
doctor found the young mother smoothing the big 
swollen hand, and crying like a baby. The crisis was 
passed; for the first time in weeks the child had taken 
notice of things about it, and was actually hungry. 

"Well, Jemima," said the doctor, picking up the 
fan, "the youngster owes his life entirely to you and to 
this." 

"Why, laws a mercy, doctor," said Jemima, with a 
shaky laugh, "you did n't spose I was gwine to let my 
chile die when one ob dese here five-cent fans could 
save him, did you? Course I would n't, but my arm 
feels mighty funny. I 'spect it will all pass away, 
though." And it did. In a few days Jemima's 
strong arm was normal again, and to-day that palm 
leaf fan baby is a flourishing and brilliant young lawyer. 
Now, of course, science has arranged the electric fan 
to be worked by machinery, but in those days cool air 
came from love and service and splendid muscular 
strength. 



124 My Beloved South 

And one solitary fan at least figured on the field of 
Gettysburg. Mrs. Pickett, in her touching tribute to 
My Soldier, says: 

Five thousand Virginians followed him at the start ; but 
when the Southern flag floated on the ridge, in less than 
half an hour not two thousand were left to rally beneath it, 
and these for only one glorious, victory-intoxicated moment. 
They were not strong enough to hold the position they had 
so dearly won; and broken-hearted even at the very mo- 
ment of his immortal triumph, my soldier led his remaining 
men down the slope again. He dismounted and walked 
beside the stretcher upon which General Kemper, one of 
his officers, was being carried, fanning him and speaking 
cheerfully to comfort him in his suffering. When he reached 
Seminary Ridge again and reported to General Lee, his 
face was wet with tears as he pointed to the crimson valley 
and said : " My noble division lies there ! " 

"General Pickett," said the Commander, "you and your 
men have covered yourselves with glory." 

Another tender memory of mine of the palm-leaf 
fan is one connected with a girl who came to New York 
from South Carolina to seek her fortune. She was not 
pretty but she had a wonderful figiu-e, as slender as a 
reed, a little round kittenish face with grey eyes, a 
snub nose, a line of freckles across it, beautiful white 
teeth, a low forehead, a quantity of dark hair, and she 
possessed to an unusual degree that intangible thing 
called charm, and a rare talent for music. Her voice, 
a warm soprano, had something in it of appeal, a thrill 
of passion and an insistence that went straight to your 
heart. The first manager she saw in New York was 
Mr. Daly, who gave her a very small part in a comedy, 
and one verse of a little song to sing. She made a 
favourable impression, for she had individuality and a 



The Palm Leaf Fan 125 

great desire to please, combined with a vivid joy of 
life. Her criticisms were encouraging and plenty of 
bouquets, boxes of candy, and admiring notes found 
their way round to the back of the stage. She was of 
a gregarious nature, loving not only her kind, but light, 
laughter, music, gaiety and amusement. She soon 
knew a crowd of artists, journalists, actors and young 
men about town, was immensely popular, always going 
about, and her more serious friends were greatly 
troubled about her, but she was so radiant with all her 
new emotions and experiences that she paid no heed 
to anything but enjoyment. 

After a year on the stage she married. It was a love 
match. The man was a well-built, straight-limbed, 
regular-featured, soft-voiced, dark-haired, human tiger. 
I never saw a more repellent expression in any face. 
Nancy, however, was desperately in love with him. 
She did n't mind his being poor and they went to live 
in a small flat with such steep stairs that to get to it 
was really like climbing a fire-escape. The first time 
I went to see her in her spotlessly clean, daintily fur- 
nished little apartment, she said to me, "I think I am 
the happiest woman in the world. When Norman goes 
down town I love him so much that I take one of his 
old coats out of his dressing-room, and lay my head on 
the shoulder and kiss the sleeve, just because he has 
worn it. And, oh, how glad I am to see him when he 
comes home from the office. It is just as if we had 
been separated for a week." 

After the honeymoon was over Norman came to the 
conclusion that Nancy was a woman with a past, and 
he became inordinately jealous and very abusive. She 
was patient and hopeful at first of giving him confidence, 
but his nature was mean, petty, and suspicious, com- 



126 My Beloved South 

bined with an utter lack of generosity, and the brutal- 
ity of a wild beast waiting to spring upon his prey. 
Nancy's mother sent her an old-fashioned diamond 
ring. It arrived one morning when this heartless 
monster was at his office. When he returned home 
she showed it to him and he said, "A lover has given 
it to you." 

She said, " My mother sent it to me from Charleston." 
He answered by saying, "You lie," sprang at her, 
choked her, knocked her down, and kicked her until 
she was bruised from shoulder to ankle. He had been 
the winner of more than one Marathon race, and his 
kick was no mean thing. 

When I answered her telegram to come to her, she 
was in a high fever and very ill. I never saw a more 
appalling sight than her black, swollen, and almost 
broken limbs. Even then she forgave him his murder- 
ous attack, but, of course, their separation was only a 
question of time, and when it did come, he left her 
bereft of all that an unprotected woman needs. She 
had lost faith in everything, even in herself. She 
could not live with him, she could not forget him, and 
the pain she suffered made her utterly reckless. 

In the beginning she went back to the stage as a 
chorus girl in a musical comedy. Then she got ill, 
and later she became an artist's model. I urged her 
to go South and put aside the feverish life she lived. 
I said, "There must be so many things to offend you, 
for, after all, you are born and bred a lady. Musical 
comedy people are not of your class, and for you the 
life of an artist's model must be the saddest thing on 
earth. Do give it all up and go back to the country 
where you belong and teach music. You are quite 
capable of doing it; you are so sweet and charming 



The Palm Leaf Fan 127 

and so young. Life must hold happiness in store for 
you yet." 

But she said, "No, it is too late, I must have excite- 
ment, I am not like a widow who can live on memory. 
It is not the quiet dead who kill us with grief. It is 
the terrible living dead, who must be forgotten and 
never thought of a single moment in the day or in the 
night, for that way madness lies. Oh, these living 
dead, to what desperate straits they drive us! If I 
could always have your steady hand, as now, on my 
wrist, I could begin life all over again, but you are 
busy. You must work. Let me go, dear, and only 
love me. I don't say that I will do anything wrong, 
but I must have forgetfulness at any cost. I must have 
it! Do you remember the bruises, and how I loved 
my husband? Well, the ache is still there. I don't 
mean only the hurt of the spirit, that never leaves me; 
but the hurt of the flesh. I so often have a pain in my 
side that I think he must have given me a vital blow." 

And yet she looked well and was apparently always 
gay and cheerful. Eventually she went back to Comedy, 
won some success, and remained on the stage. She 
was the most generous creature I ever knew. Once, 
when she had only two pairs of shoes, she gave one pair 
to a girl in the chorus poorer than herself. And for 
weeks during the hottest weather in New York when 
she could have gone to the country, she stayed on and 
sewed day and night to make a pretty layette for a 
poor unwedded mother. She never had a baby of her 
own, but she loved children with a real mother's un- 
selfish instinct. And she sold a rich gold chain, her 
last remaining heirloom, and gave the money for a 
course of treatment to a young actress, threatened with 
blindness. That warm heart of hers was always full 



128 My Beloved South 

of sympathy and kindliness and help for human suffer- 
ing. Her troubles were powerless to embitter her, 
and I never heard her make a complaint. 

Finally, I married and went to England to live. She 
wrote to me cheerfully from time to time and said how 
much she wanted to see me, but never mentioned her 
health. Then came a letter telling me she was in a 
hospital, and had been operated on successfully for 
appendicitis. She said the Sisters of Charity were 
very kind, and that it was the peacefullest and happiest 
time she had known for years, and I must come at once 
to see her when I arrived in New York — I was going 
over that autumn — and that she was looking forward 
with great joy to our meeting. 

When I got to the hotel I scarcely looked at my rooms, 
but hurried off at once to the hospital and to Nancy. 
I was too late; she had died the week before. 

The Sister who had taken care of her, came into the 
room and told me of her illness and unexpected death. 
She said: "You don't know how we loved her. She 
was the most charming and cheerful patient we ever 
had. When she came, it was as if she was going on a 
pleasure tour. She brought her banjo, tied with many 
bright ribbons, and slung it across the foot of her bed. 
She was making Irish lace, and that hung in a little 
brocade bag on the handle of her bureau, and with her 
silver brushes and boxes and her candlesticks on the 
mantelpiece and her books about, the room did n't 
look a bit like one of our rooms. And her dressing 
jackets and pocket handkerchiefs were so pretty and 
dainty, she said she had made and embroidered every- 
thing herself. 

"We put her photographs on the mantelpiece by her 
little clock, one of her father and sister, and one," said 



The Palm Leaf Fan 129 

the nun looking at me, "of you. She used so often to 
talk to me about you. I never saw anything like her 
courage. The very morning of her operation she was 
playing on her banjo, and she went quite gaily to the 
operating-room and everything passed off well, and 
her recovery was quick and satisfactory. When she 
was apparently quite herself again she wanted a little 
fresh air, and we thought it would do her no harm to 
take a short walk. She went out for half an hour, a 
sudden rain storm came up and drenched her to the 
skin. 

" She came in shivering, her teeth were chattering with 
cold, and that night pneumonia developed. I do not 
know if she thought she was going to die. She was very 
cheerful, but she said, 'If I die, as you are from "Way 
Down South in Dixie," I want to give you my banjo.' 
One morning she was terribly weak and restless ; her fever 
was high, and I was fanning her with a palm-leaf fan, 
when presently she put out her hand and said, 'Sister, 
I am sure you are very tired, give me that fan, ' and 
taking it from me with a sweet but tired smile, she 
moved it feebly for a few times; when I turned, the 
little hand was still. She was dead. Her last action 
was an unselfish one, a thought for another." 

I said, "I hope you pray for her." 

The Sister replied, "Oh, yes, I do, every day. She 
had great temptations, but great love, great generosity 
and great self-forgetfulness, and," she added softly, 
"God is merciful — always merciful. Would you like 
to see her banjo? One of the Sisters plays a little and 
I keep it in that box." 

"No," I said, "I feel now as if I never wanted to see 
another banjo." 

But she opened the box and took out a palm leaf 



I30 My Beloved South 

fan, laying it gently on my lap. "This," she said, "is 
the last thing she ever touched." 

I crossed my hands lightly on the old fan and when 
the Sister took it from me she said, "You have been 
crying. The fan is wet with tears." 



CHAPTER IX 

HOSPITABLE CHARLESTON 

Fair were our nation's visions, and as grand 

As ever floated out of any fancy-land; 

Children were we in simple faith, 

But god-like children, whom nor death, 

Nor threat of danger drove from honour's path — 

In the land where we were dreaming. 

D. B. Lucas. 

IT was said before the War that one letter of introduc- 
tion to Charleston would give you twenty-five 
dinners, and twenty-five letters in New York would 
give you one dinner. Dinners are, alas, more difficult 
to give in Charleston now, as the present-day negro 
does not approve of late hours, but the hearts of the 
people are as hospitable as ever. 

We arrived in that beautiful white city on Saturday, 
and I had no sooner delivered my letters of introduc- 
tion than cards were left accompanied by invitations 
(such a pretty, charming attention), to occupy various 
pews in St. Michael's, a quaint, interesting church of 
English architecture, very reminiscent of St. Martin's 
in the Fields in London. The old-fashioned pews are 
so high they almost hide the occupants, and the sweet 
chime of bells, like the horses of St. Mark's in Venice, 
have journeyed far, as in 1782 Major Traille of the 
British Army, carried them as a trophy of war to 
London. In 1783 they were re-shipped to Charleston, 
replaced in the steeple, and once more rang out their 
silvery peals. 

131 



132 My Beloved South 

For many years St. Michael's was a church by day 
and a blessed lighthouse by night, sending out from 
its tall spire rays of warning to ships at sea. The little 
sweet old-fashioned churchyard is covered with grass 
and full of flowers. The old tombs certainly bear 
witness to the healthy climate, for almost everybody 
seemed to have hved to the ripe age of seventy-five, 
seventy-eight, eighty or eighty-two years. Probably 
the most unique monument in all the world is a rude 
memorial on one of these ancient graves. A yoimg 
English settler came to Charleston with his wife and 
his belongings, among them a very solid oak bedstead. 
When his wife died he had no money for a headstone, 
but hoping eventually to buy one he put up temporarily 
the head of the bed. On it is cut in rude letters: 
"Mary Ann Luyton, wife of Will Luyton. Died 
September 9th, 1770, in the 27th year of her age." 
Perhaps he left Charleston before he could provide 
another headstone ; at any rate, this stout oak memorial 
is as good to-day as when it was erected in 1770. Its 
quaintness making it a subject of keen interst to the 
tourist, it is now protected by a strong wire netting, 
and there seems to be no reason why it should not last 
another century. 

Charleston had pleasant memories for me, as my 
Aunt Polly Hynes had made a visit there in her youth, 
many years before the War, and, as a little girl, I used 
to hear her speak of the Rhetts, the Pinckneys, the 
Middletons, the Vander Horsts, the Barnwells, the 
Pringles, the Ravenels, the Izards, the Draytons, the 
Allstans and the Chesnuts, at whose house she visited. 
The great families apparently lived like princes, and 
even people who were not rich kept fifteen or twenty 
servants. 



Hospitable Charleston 133 

Mrs. Chesnut was the "Southern Planter's Northern 
Bride," having been born in Philadelphia. My grand- 
father, Governor Duval, met them in Washington and 
corresponded afterwards for many years with her 
husband. The families interchanged visits, for the 
Chesnuts were as hospitable as my grandfather, and 
fifty times richer. It was said there were more than a 
thousand slaves on Mulberry plantation and sixty or 
seventy servants about the house. Mrs. Chesnut got 
all her gowns from Paris and was distinguished for her 
beautiful head-dresses and her lovely jewels. Aunt 
Polly, during her visit, was provided with an accom- 
plished lady's maid, who was an excellent hair-dresser 
and a wonderful clear-starcher. 

In those days ladies wore transparent India muslins 
embroidered and trimmed with lace, and organdies 
with a blue or purple ground. These dainty gowns 
required starch made of gum arable, which was as 
transparent as jelly, and not every maid understood the 
art of using it. Aunt Polly embroidered quite as well 
as any professional needlewoman; her English thread 
lace was transferred from one dress to another and 
her India muslins must have been exquisite, so she 
appreciated a proper blanchisseuse. I have a little 
cape of drawn work and embroidery, which I believe 
she was several years in making, that is quite worthy 
of a museum. After the death of my grandmother, 
who was her only sister, she always wore black-and- 
white or purple and I never saw her in a light-coloured 
dress. 

Whenever dreams were spoken of, Aunt Polly always 
related the fortunate dream of her friend, Mrs. Robert 
Shubrick, which had, under extraordinary circumstances, 
saved the life of her brother who was coming to Charles- 



134 My Beloved South 

ton by boat from Philadelphia. Three times in one 
night this lady had a recurrent vision of him in a surging 
sea with a little white flag floating in front of him. So 
impressed was she with the truth of the warning, that 
she got her husband to send a pilot boat to cruise in 
the track of the incoming vessels, and the third day 
something small and white was seen floating on the 
waves of the sea, and, coming nearer, a half-starved 
man was picked up lying on a chicken-coop — the only 
survivor of a ship which had gone down three days 
before. 

Aunt Polly, who was a famous gardener, had taken 
back the gardenia with her to Florida and from there 
she had brought it to Texas. It was named after 
Doctor Garden of Charleston, a famous horticulturist, 
a popular doctor and, although a Royalist, after the 
Revolution he never left Charleston and died there. 
My mother, who was more proud of her garden than 
of anything in the world, used to say when she showed 
the hibiscus, a flower which in the morning was white, 
in the afternoon rose and in the evening red, and which 
I always thought in my childhood came from fairyland 
— "This was sent me from South Carolina by one of 
the Pinckneys." 

The first time I went into the street in Charleston 
the catalpa, and the sweet bay, and the pink mimosa, 
all old friends, gave me a fragrant greeting. But the 
live oaks, draped in moss, were the oldest friends of all. 
Bee and I started out intending to take a long walk on 
Monday morning. The open doors of the library, 
however, were too tempting and there we stopped. It 
was organised in 1728 and is truly a delightful place 
in which to spend an hour or two. It contains some 
rare and valuable manuscripts and the Gazette, Charles- 



Hospitable Charleston 135 

ton's first newspaper, a tiny little sheet, printed on 
grey paper with a printer's ink which must have 
been very rich as it is as thick and black as possible 
even to-day. Occasionally, it is cold enough for fires, 
but the windows and the doors of the library are con- 
tinually open, the bright yet softened sunlight of the 
winter streams in, and the air is like champagne, warm 
enough for comfort and cool enough to be exhilarating, 
for Charleston has a wide sea frontage. The beautiful 
East and South Batteries with their splendid houses and 
avenues of palmettos and magnolias, are suggestive of 
Nice, but the climate is infinitely superior to that of 
the South of France, as there is no raw chill with the 
setting of the sun, but just an agreeable crisp coolness. 
A letter in 161 7 to Lord Ashley in England quaintly de- 
scribes the climate of Charleston : " It must of necessity 
be very healthy, being free from any noxious vapours, all 
summer long being refreshed with cool breathings from 
the sea, which up in the country we are not so fully 
sensitive of." 

The old houses are stately and beautiful. They 
combine the best periods of English architecture with 
the needs of the South. Generally two long balconies, 
one on the first and one on the second storey, run along 
the entire side of the house, and there Charleston people 
live during the summer, which is said to be by no means 
an unpleasant part of the year, with the bathing and 
boating by moonlight on the silver sea. The water of 
Charleston is quite unique, it flows from artesian wells, 
is very cool and pleasant to drink and highly charged 
with soda, magnesia, and salt, therefore it is a strong 
and valuable medicinal water, a splendid aid to the 
digestion (it was marvellously beneficial to me), and a 
great skin beautifier. If a little German village pos- 



136 My Beloved South 

sessed the waters of Charleston, half of Europe would 
be flocking to drink them. A clever doctor from Boston 
staying in the same house with me, who had suffered 
for years from indigestion, said the waters of Charleston 
had completely cured him. He declared that if he 
was ten years younger he would settle there, open a 
large sanatorium, which with the combination of the 
sun, the tonic air, and the curative properties of the 
waters would enable many a chronic invalid to recover 
health. The environs of Charleston are quite delight- 
ful. Summerville, a beautiful little place, semi-tropical 
in verdure, rich in the odour of flowering shrubs, is so 
extraordinarily profuse in its abundance of wistaria 
that it looks like a long amethyst picture from a Japan- 
ese screen. There is an excellent hotel in the midst 
of pine and cypress and magnolia trees, and a large tea 
plantation not far away, which we drove through. 
The tea did not interest me so much as the beautiful 
roses and camellias, but we bought a small package and 
tried it. In this respect I fear I am de-nationalised, 
for I infinitely prefer the tea we get in England. 

On the other side of Charleston, fifteen or twenty 
minutes by boat and a little distance by rail, is the Isle 
of Palms where many of the residents have cottages. 
It is a charming spot and might with equal appropriate- 
ness be called the Isle of Oleanders, for they grow to a 
fine size and in great luxuriance among the palmetto 
trees down to the very water's edge. On our return 
from the Isle of Palms we stopped at Fort Moultrie and 
saw the tomb of Oceola, the Indian chief who fought 
for America during the Seminole War. The Fort 
is now a pleasant military post and a fine-looking 
Irish sergeant showed us over it, and pointed out with 
pride Fort Jasper, named in honour of Sergeant Jasper, 



Hospitable Charleston 137 

a gallant non-commissioned officer of the Revolution. 
When the British were besieging the fort the flagstaff 
was shot away and the flag fell, arousing the British to 
a great cheer, for they thought it meant surrender. 
Jasper leaped from the wall, seized and tore the flag 
from the broken staff and, climbing back fastened it to 
a rod, saying, "Colonel, we must fight under our flag!" 
and the white crescent rose again. Sergeant McCarthy 
said it was the only monument of a private soldier in 
America. 

I asked him a good many questions about military 
service. He had been in the service for years and said 
it was harder every day to get recruits. America has 
so many resources and possibilities for the working 
man that he hesitates to join the army. "Still there 
are chances even for soldiers," the Sergeant added; 
"we have a private in the . . . who owns a restaurant 
in Charleston." 

"How did he manage that?" asked Bee. 

"He is a Greek," said the Sergeant. "He enlisted 
as soon as he came over here and he lent out his 
first month's pay at a dollar-and-a-quarter interest 
on the dollar, the money to be returned within the 
month." 

"There is a Greek proverb in the East," I said, 
" that it takes two Jews to be equal to one Greek." 

"Since then," said Sergeant McCarthy, "while 
never spending a penny himself, he has lent money to 
the whole regiment." 

"And always," I said, "gets back his usurious 
interest." 

"Always," said the Sergeant, "although if the Colonel 
knew about it he would stop his game. In four years 
he has made about four thousand dollars, but," he 



138 My Beloved South 

added with a sigh, "only a Greek can do it, not a native- 
born American nor an Irishman. My pay is good, 
fifty or so dollars a month. I am a bachelor with no 
kids to provide for, and yet I go now and then to 
Calegeiri Clementeanio for a loan." 

What a pity that Greek cannot meet Greek only in 
this world, for evidently he will always get the better 
of every other nationality. 

On my way home it was borne in upon me that I was 
really in my own leisurely land, for as we were hurrying 
to the boat the Captain smilingly called out, "We will 
wait : take your time, take your time, we are not going 
off without you." 

"Now," I said to Bee, "there is the true, considerate, 
obliging spirit of the South." 

Charleston socially is one of the most agreeable 
places in America and one of the most English, though 
it really has no right to be, for it was not like Virginia, 
settled by the Cavaliers, but by a mixture of races — 
English, Scotch, and Irish, Belgian, Swiss, and French 
Huguenots. But the English curiously enough have 
left their impress here more clearly than anywhere 
else in America. The accent is a pretty, softened, 
musical English, the tastes of the people, the litera- 
ture, the atmosphere, after all these centuries, are still 
English. 

I went to have a dish of tea with Mrs. St, Julien 
Ravenel, the author of that delightful book, Charleston, 
the Place and the People, and found that she was inti- 
mately conversant with English politics, literature, and 
present-day affairs. She subscribes to a number of 
English periodicals, pictorial magazines, and The Times, 
and is as well up in the news of London as any lady 
living in one of the provincial towns in England. She 



Hospitable Charleston 139 

is a tall, distinguished-looking woman of delicate and 
fair appearance, not unlike the late Baroness Burdett- 
Coutts, for she has the same serious manner and the 
same cultivated dignity and lovableness. She said 
she had seen an article lately in one of the Northern 
magazines which spoke of the want of cultivation in 
the women who formerly lived on plantations. "There 
was never a more unfounded assertion than this," she 
declared, "because women who were brought up on a 
plantation had little to do except read. They generally 
had excellent governesses, with access to good libraries 
and abundance of leisure. There was constant inter- 
course between England and Charleston. The men of 
the family were sent to Eton and Oxford to be educated, 
and their sisters emulated them in learning. Many 
women knew both Greek and Latin, were well versed 
in literature and knew French well. This article went 
on to say that they knew nothing of English litera- 
ture ; yet I remember one friend, who had received her 
entire education in England, telling me years ago 
that she had only read four American authors — Poe, 
Hawthorne's Marble Faun, but not his Yankee Tales, 
Washington Irving, and Prescott's Conquest of Mex- 
ico, "although," she added, "I believe that is mostly 
fiction." 

Mrs. Ravenel herself is certainly one of the most 
widely read women I have ever met and, indeed, I 
found all the people of Charleston cultivated and intel- 
ligent, with the charming manner inherited from aris- 
tocratic ancestors, who already from older countries 
had great traditions, and pride of family behind them. 
There is a certain stateliness of deportment still re- 
maining. Quite young people speak to their elders 
as "Mistress Pinckney," "Mistress Pringle," and so 



140 My Beloved South 

on. Even some of the very old negroes have beautiful 
manners. 

John Rutledge wrote to his brother studying for 
the Bar in England in 1769: 

The very first thing you should be thoroughly acquainted 
with is the writing of shorthand, which you will find an 
infinite advantage. Take down notes of everything in 
Court, even if not worth transcribing, for your time may 
as well be employed in writing as in hearing. By no means 
fall into the too common practice of not attending a place 
of worship. There is generally a good preacher at the 
Temple Church. ... If you stick to French and converse 
generally in that language you may soon be master of it. 
Whatever study you attempt, make yourself completely 
master of it; nothing makes a person so ridiculous as to 
pretend to things he does not understand. I know nothing 
more entertaining and more likely to give you a graceful 
manner of speaking than seeing a good play well acted. 
Garrick is inimitable, mark him well and you will profit by 
him. You must not neglect the classics. Get a good pri- 
vate tutor who will point out their beauties to you and at 
your age you will in six months become better acquainted 
with them than a boy at school generally in seven or eight 
years. Read Latin authors, the best frequently. . . . 
Read the apothegms of Bacon, English history, and the 
enclosed list of law books; and when I say read, I don't 
mean run cursorily through them as you would a news- 
paper, but read carefully and deliberately and transcribe 
what you find useful in it. Bacon, you know, is my favour- 
ite. You will think I have cut out work enough for you 
while in England, and indeed though it is a long time to 
look forward to, if you mind your business you will not have 
too much time to spare. . . . One word in regard to your 
deportment. Let your dress be plain, alwaj^s in the city 
and elsewhere, except when it is necessary that it should be 
otherwise, and your behaviour rather grave. 



Hospitable Charleston 141 

Farewell, my dear brother. Let me hear from you by 
every opportunity, 

Believe me, 

Yours affectionately 

J. RUTLEDGE. 

It was the fashion in those days in America to pre- 
serve a grave exterior. Alas! It is somewhat of a 
fashion still. I fancy it was supposed to portend an 
ambitious future. Even now, any position of import- 
ance and more especially the office of senator seems to 
weigh heavily upon the American man. A gay and 
witty senator would be a positive anachronism. Charles 
Sumner said that in his early youth he made one or two 
jokes in the Senate, and was advised by a friend if he 
hoped to succeed in public life never to joke again, 
and he never did. Imagine it ! 

But I have an idea that all the world over humour 
is regarded as somehow inconsistent with seriousness 
of purpose, yet how very clearly the eyes of a humourist 
can see, for humour gives a just perspective, and warmth 
of heart, keen affection, and a sensitive nature often 
accompany it. 

That gay and gallant jester, Henry Labouchere, who 
for so many years illumined the House of Commons 
with his transcendent wit, wrote me a letter after the 
death of his wife in which he said now that she had gone 
before him, death could not come to him too soon. 
Yet how often men, who would scarcely give a sigh of 
regret or remembrance at the death of their wives, 
have called him heartless. I think American people 
are really graver and more serious than English people. 
I suppose it is the fashion, just as it is the fashion in 
England to take grave events with sangfroid and 
composure. 



142 My Beloved South 

Dr. Milligan, a surgeon, wrote to London from 
Charleston about 1775, and said: 

The inhabitants are of complexion little different to the 
English, of good stature, well-made, Hvely, agreeable, 
sensible, spirited, open-hearted, exceed most people in acts 
of benevolence, hospitality and charity. The men and 
women who have a right to the class of gentry, (who are 
more numerous here than in any other colony of North 
America,) dress with elegance and neatness. The per- 
sonal qualities of the ladies are much to their credit and 
advantage. MiddHng stature, genteel and slender, fair 
complexioned without the help of art, regular features, 
fond of dancing, sing well, play upon harpsichord and 
guitar, etc. 

There is a list made about this date of merchandise 
shipped to Charleston: "Fine Flanders lace, the finest 
Dutch linens, French cambrics, English chintz; Hyson 
tea; silks, gold and silver laces; the finest Broadcloth, 
carpets, British and East Indian handkerchiefs, gloves 
and ribbons, metals, pewter, brass and copper wrought 
of all sorts; plate and silver; watches, gold and silver; 
books, china, fans and other millinery wares. Looking- 
glasses, pictures, and prints, salad oil; beer in casks 
and bottles, wine of all sorts, but the chief kind drunk 
here is Madeira, imported directly from the place of 
growth." The day I dined with Judge Brawley and 
his wife (he is one of South Carolina's most distin- 
guished sons, a brave soldier in the Confederate army, 
who lost one arm in a gallant encounter almost at the 
beginning of the War), we drank to the success of 
our beloved South in fine old Madeira. 

It was while I was at Charleston that Sam wrote to 
tell me of the fall of Harrison Leffingwell. 



Hospitable Charleston 143 

My Dear Bessie, 

We have missed you very much at Chevy Chase. The 
birds all went South when you did, and after that a severe 
snowstorm set in which lasted several days, but the weather 
is now warmer again. Also, your maid has been discharged. 
The motor, after it came back from the machine shop in 
perfect order, suddenly and unaccountably went wrong. 
On questioning George, the butler (he of the Knox Express 
fame), it came out that Harrison Leffingwell had borrowed 
the motor and taken his best girl for a long ride, which 
will cost me at the very least $25.00, so I discharged him 
on the spot. He was very saucy and said, " I take it, as you 
are a man of honour and I am another, that this unpleasant- 
ness between us will not prevent my going to England with 
Mrs. O'Connor. " I was not so severe with him as I might 
have been because I considered that his wild career was 
undoubtedly helped along by you. You made him think 
he was a Caruso and a ladies' maid combined, and there 
was no standing him after you left. He will doubtless 
revenge himself on the family, as he has taken / Myself 
with him and I suppose he will tear out the pictures 
and have them framed. So you are probably by this time 
adorning some small negro shack. You certainly have 
the faculty of spoiling people more than anybody I 
know. Your family, however, long ago got reconciled 
to you. 

We don't want you to stay too long in the South, and 
we hope you are coming back for a visit this spring. There 
is a mocking-bird who builds his nest just outside your 
bedroom window, and when the evenings are warm he sings 
every night at nine o'clock, — and as this is going to be a 
warm spring he will come early. So hurry up. With 
love. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Sam. 

P. S. Harrison LeflEingwell had the impudence to call me 



144 My Beloved South 

up on the telephone and ask me to give him your address. 
Maybe he has written you by this time; if he has I wish 
you would tell him to send me back your book. 

And my faithful Rose wrote to tell me of my dear 
old dog Coaxy's death. I was glad to have Bee with 
me, for she loved Coaxy well and was one of his best 
friends. She knew there never was such a fox-terrier 
— so intelligent, so original, so clever, so quick and so 
aflFectionate as Coaxy. 

"Do you remember," I said to Bee, "that scarlet 
leather collar with the brass nails that you sent Coaxy 
from Paris, and how proud he was of it?" He never 
forgot Bee, even after an absence of one or two years, 
and was filled with joy when he saw her and remembered 
how in his puppyhood, when ill with distemper, she 
had sat for a whole day with a gentle hand in his 
basket. It was a sad thought that I was never again to 
see my faithful friend Coaxy, a name evolved from his 
sweet irresistible coaxing ways. When he laid himself 
out to coax, nobody could resist him. 

"Put on your hat," said Bee, "and come out in the 
sun, it always cheers you, and here 's a little case for 
your stamps." It was marked in gilt letters "Swizzle- 
gigs." How many, many long years since I had seen 
that comical dear name, invented in my babyhood by 
my uncle John Duval, a tender humourist, who said it 
expressed my peculiar vagaries. I have often thought 
it wholly appropriate to my entire restless, changing, 
inconsequent life. It would be impossible for any 
human being who suggested the name of Swizzlegigs 
to live an ordinary humdrum existence. 

"Bee," said I, "how did you ever remember?" 
But I need not have asked; Bee never forgets. 



Hospitable Charleston 145 

"Here are your gloves," she said, "we will go to the 
Exchange and see the pretty things." 

On our arrival in Charleston we had been lucky 
enough to find shelter in the house of Mrs. Dotterer, 
a handsome, agreeable woman and an excellent house- 
keeper. Mrs. Chapman, her mother, after the War, 
started the Woman's Exchange, a most useful institu- 
tion with all sorts of interesting objects for sale, authen- 
tic antiques, carved looking-glasses, good specimens of 
genuine Sheffield plate and good copies of old furniture. 
I bought a wild turkey-tail fan and shall use it in 
England as a fire-screen. The "Lady Baltimore" 
cake, the chef d'ceuvre of the Exchange, so toothsomely 
described by Owen Wister, is now known all over the 
world. The ladies there receive orders from Russia, 
China, Japan, and I daresay, even from the Balkans. 
My kind hostesses, hearing of my sad loss, gave me a 
little surprise that evening, a "Lady Baltimore" cake 
all my own. It was exceedingly good, but very rich, 
being made with layers of delicate white cake filled 
between with a thick sugared paste of divers sorts of 
nuts and citron. The top is of richly flavoured icing, 
and covered with candied flowers. 

That night at supper someone told the story of Mrs. 
Pettigru King, one of the idols of my childhood. She 
had incomparable wit, great charm, and, if not beauty, 
the reflection of it, for her skin was exquisite, her 
bright shining nut-brown hair a lovely colour, and her 
smile was enchanting. Thackeray had heard of her wit, 
and, to draw out her powers w^hen she asked him the 
question, "Mr. Thackeray, how do you like America?" 
his eyes twinkling with mischief, he answered: "Very 
much, but the Americans, they are vulgar." Where- 
upon she quickly answered: "That is easily understood, 



146 My Beloved South 

for we are all descendants of the English." He said, 
laughing, "Forgive my rudeness, it was only to make 
you unsheathe the dagger of your wit. I am quite 
satisfied with the result." And after these sharp 
thrusts on both sides they became the greatest of 
friends. 



CHAPTER X 

THE CHARM OF CHARLESTON — THE SILVER GARDEN 

THERE is no function historically more delightful 
or interesting in America than Charleston's St. 
Cecilia balls. The society began in 1737 with a concert 
given on a Thursday, St. Cecilia's day, and comprised 
originally a number of earnest musical amateurs who 
soon became ambitious and paid a large salary to the 
chef d'orchestre, who in 1773 received five hundred 
guineas a year. The arts and graces declined, however, 
as the years went by, giving place perforce to more 
practical interests. Fewer men had time for the study 
of music, and when President Monroe accompanied by 
John C. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, visited Charles- 
ton, it was decided that St. Cecilia must give a ball in 
lieu of a concert. Since then, except during the War, 
there has been no interruption of the three balls given 
every winter by the St. Cecilia Society. The members 
are elected by the society and it is no uncommon thing 
for the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather of an 
applicant to have been members before him. Mrs. 
Ravenel says, "If a new resident, or a family recently 
brought into notice, there will be inquiry, perhaps 
hesitation and a good backing will be desirable. When 
a man is elected the names of the ladies of his household 
are at once put upon the list and remain there forever, 
changes of fortune affecting them not at all. The 
members elect the Vice-President, Secretary and 

147 



148 My Beloved South 

Treasurer and Board of Managers; the managers 
continue from year to year, vacancies occurring only 
by death, the eldest manager becoming President and 
Vice-President in due order." 

The invitations are in themselves quite unique, for 
every name on them has figured in history before and 
during the Revolution, bringing back memories of the 
old picturesque life of the plantation gone to come no 
more. Edward Rutledge, one of the present managers, 
is a descendant of John Rutledge who wrote so hero- 
ically to Moultrie in 1776: "General Lee wishes you to 
evacuate the Fort. You will not do so without an 
order from me. I will cut off my right hand sooner 
than write it. — J. Rutledge." 

Joseph W. Barnwell, my escort to supper, a handsome 
clean-shaven barrister, with dark humorous eyes is a 
descendant of "Tuscarora Jack," a favourite hero of 
my childhood, chiefly I think on account of his name, 
although he was a daring, resolute fighter in the wars 
with the Indians. Another of the family, Robert 
Woodward Barnwell, a member of the Convention at 
Montgomery, gave the casting vote which made Jeffer- 
son Davis President of the Confederacy. But every 
name, — Middleton, Porcher, Vander Horst, Sinkler, 
Stony, Barker, Ravenel — is honoured in the history 
not only of the State of Carolina, but of America, and 
these splendid names have been as nearly as possible 
preserved in the invitations of the St. Cecilia's Society 
by the election of sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons 
throughout the centuries. They are as gallant gentle- 
men as their great-grandfathers and even in the present- 
day balls a trace of the old order exists. No sitting 
out on stair-steps or hiding away in corners is allowed 
at these historic parties. 



The Charm of Charleston 149 

A story is told of one of the "Four Hundred," who 
on her way from Florida to New York received an 
invitation to a St. Cecilia ball. She sat out one or two 
of the dances on the staircase outside the ballroom. 
Such a breach of etiquette was unknown and was 
certainly not to be allowed, so the President, a man of 
beautiful manners and charming address, found the 
lady in a secluded corner and offering his arm said, 
"I have come, dear Madam, to conduct you to the 
ballroom. We cannot afford, if only for a brief moment, 
to lose so brilliant an ornament." 

"Oh," she said, 'T know I am breaking a rule, but 
all the world does it in New York and London." The 
President replied, "New York and London are too 
large to look after individual guests; here we can see 
to their welfare, and I fear you will take cold in this 
draughty hall." The lady laughed, took his arm, and 
went back to the ballroom. 

The men of Charleston subscribe liberally, and the 
balls are beautifully arranged. The society owns its 
own napery, silver, glass and table ornaments and, 
with each table decorated with flowers, the balls have 
all the refinement of private entertainments. The 
suppers are served promptly at twelve o'clock, as the 
dances begin at nine, and are prepared by negro cooks, 
the ladies of Charleston superintending everything and 
often cutting sandwiches and preparing some special 
delicacy with their own hands. The round dances 
are interspersed with rather stately music when the 
older people walk round the room, for the St. Cecilias, 
unlike most balls in America, are by no means given 
exclusively for young girls. Mammas and even grand- 
mammas are expected to be present and to participate 
in the evening's enjoyment. 



150 ' My Beloved South 

Etiquette requires the president to take down the 
latest bride to supper, while the vice-president takes 
the most distinguished stranger. The girls are sup- 
posed after each dance to return to their chaperons, 
and in this way the men are left free to seek in time the 
partners engaged for the next dance. This is a fashion 
that might well be introduced at other balls in America. 
All the invitations of the St. Cecilias are delivered by 
hand and a stranger must almost belong to the livre d'or 
to receive one. When, however, the guest has arrived 
she is entertained like a queen; every dance on her 
programme is filled up, or if she happens not to dance, 
agreeable partners are provided for conversation, and 
no one who has attended a St. Cecilia ball is likely to 
forget its distinctive and hospitable charm. 

There was one thing I wanted very much in Charles- 
ton that I did not get, a palmetto salad — it is said to 
be a very great delicacy and is made from the heart of 
the palmetto tree. It seems a great extravagance to 
destroy an entire tree for a dish, but on the plantations 
there are so many trees that one more or less makes 
very little difference. Those who have eaten of it say 
there is no flavour so fine and delicate as this round 
white heart dressed with fresh olive oil, lemon instead 
of vinegar, and a dash of salt. One of my hostesses, 
sweet little Mrs. Mitchell, promised if I would remain 
a few days longer she would send to her plantation for 
this luxurious speciality of South Carolina, and make 
a salad with her own tiny hands. I could n't wait, but 
some day I am going back for it. 

The morning for our visit to the Magnolia Cemetery 
was glorious with sunshine, and Bee proposed that we 
should make a detour and go by the East Battery to 
take our car. Even grim Fort Moultrie looked cheerful 



The Charm of Charleston 151 

that day; there were several beautiful yachts in the 
harbour, the avenue of palmettos rustled their leaves 
in a faint bright breeze, and as I turned to look at the 
pretty white town, peaceful and prosperous, it seemed 
amazing that so much of it had survived the five hun- 
dred and sixty days of bombardment it had sustained 
during the Civil War. Certainly no city has suffered 
in the past more than Charleston, for, after the long 
siege, when her sons by land and sea kept her "virgin 
and inviolate to the last," came a severe earthquake. 
The house we were living in carries a great iron bar 
across the front in memory of this event. Fate seems 
indeed to have tried the people in order to prove their 
courage, which is indomitable. 

The cannon along the Battery always detained us 
for a little; they speak so eloquently of that long bom- 
bardment, and each bears a brass tablet telling of the 
service it had done. A big gun looking directly upon 
Fort Moultrie had been down in the depths of the sea 
and this was its honourable record : " This gun, having 
taken part in the attack on Fort Sumter by an armoured 
squadron, April 7th, 1863, was recovered from the wreck 
of the sunken Keokuk by an exploit of heroic enterprise, 
and mounted on Sullivan's Island, where for two years 
it was used in defence of the city it had once been 
brought to attack. Removed to this place by the 
Civil Authority, August, 1889." Some of the guns had 
seen four years of active service; when the sun shone 
so brilliantly upon them it turned the black of the iron 
into a shimmering blue. Fate, with even her hardest 
knocks, cannot deprive Charleston of its ideal climate, 
and in another decade all her old prosperity will return 
to her, for there is no more beautiful spot in America 
than this lovely city by the sea. Even Magnolia 



152 My Beloved South 

Cemetery smiled that day, and the dead seemed in 
happy peace. The monument to South Carolina's 
great soldier, General Wade Hampton, stands in the 
centre of the Confederate dead, whom with such 
valiant courage he led into heroic action. The most 
beautiful monuments are not however of stone; they 
are nature's great live-oaks, with their widely spread- 
ing branches, bending tenderly over the hundreds of 
little headstones, as if to say, "Soldiers, sleep well." 
And I thought of Father Ryan's little verses: 

Old trees ! old trees ! in your mystic gloom 

There 's many a warrior laid, 

And many a nameless and lonely tomb 

Is sheltered beneath your shade. 

Old trees! old trees! without pomp or prayer 

We buried the brave and the true, 

We fired a volley and left them there 

To rest, old trees, with you. 

Old trees! old trees, keep watch and ward 
Over each grass-grown bed ; 
'T is a glory, old trees, to stand as guard 
Over our Southern dead ; 
Old trees, old trees, we shall pass away 
Like the leaves you yearly shed. 
But ye! lone sentinels, still must stay 
Old trees, to guard our dead. 

The sun grew so warm that to escape it I sat under 
one of the trees with the long grey moss softly touching 
my face like the gentle hand of an old friend. Bee 
was busy with her kodak trying to get an impression 
of one of the ancient oaks carrying seven centuries of 
mystic gloom, when a lady, dressed in deepest mourning, 
with a sweet face, old, thin and very white, came and 



The Charm of Charleston 153 

sat beside me. She said, "Good morning; the sun is 
very warm for this time of the year." 

I said, "It is, indeed, but having been out of the 
South so long I am more than grateful for it." 

"Do you," she said, "live abroad?" 

"Yes," I said, "I live in London, at least I used to 
live in London; but now I have no 'dwelling more by 
sea or shore. ' " 

"Ah," she said, "then it is better to wander." 

"Yes," I said, "perhaps; — this is a very beautiful 
place for rest." 

She said, "I try to find it so, for, like Bobbie, the 
little faithful dog in Edinburgh, who when he lost his 
master spent his life by the side of his grave, I spend 
my life here. All my six children sleep over there — " 
she pointed to a row of graves not far off. "Whenever 
the sun shines I come here in the morning, and I leave 
in the evening. I do not always bring flowers, but I 
talk to them and often I go away comforted, for I feel 
they have talked to me." 

" I, too, have my sorrows, but they are nothing com- 
pared to yours." 

"I can bear mine," she said, "for I know I shall find 
my children again. I am a little lonely and I grow 
weary of waiting, but that is all." 

"Good-bye," I said "I shall often think of you." 

"I need not give you my address in Charleston," 
she said, "you will always find me here." 

Bee had photographed the noble tree and met me 
with her camera. 

"You look white and fagged, are you tired?" she 
asked. 

"No," I said, "but a broken heart that still lives 
has been shown to me. The quiet hearts of the dead 



154 My Beloved South 

are at peace; it is the sorrows of the Hving that are 
overwhelming." 

And as we walked along under the brilliant sunshine, 
I told her of the poor lady that we had left with all her 
devoted dead; and when I had finished Bee's cheeks 
were not quite so pink, for she has a very tender, 
maternal, protecting nature. Her hand is instinctively 
stretched out to succoiu and to help. If she gets out of 
a street-car and an old lady follows, Bee waits like a 
perfect gentleman to help her out. If a friend is ill, 
Bee never fails to make a daily visit ; if a child is fretful 
Bee can comfort it, and there is nothing in medicine 
or science for the benefit of humanity which does not 
appeal to her. To the world she presents a frank, 
boyish front, and never, under any circumstances, 
indulges in gush, even with her best beloved friends. 
But in her blue eyes there is the same expression that 
I remember in the eyes of a nun, who when she died, left 
eighteen hundred foundlings and waifs under her roof. 
Bee is sensitively proud and the soul of modesty. She 
is indifferently polite to men, unless they happen to be 
engaged to her best friends, when she puts aside her maid- 
enly armour and is her own gracious hospitable self. 

"Why do you," I said to her, "stand that conceited 
bore of a professor, give him Mary's best wine to drink, 
and have turkey for dinner whenever he comes?" 

"Because," said Bee, "he is going to marry my friend 
Dorothy next month. She lives in Boston, and she 
has been such a long time making up her mind to do 
it I felt that I must give her some encouragement." 

I said, "Poor Dorothy; she is going to be bored to 
extinction." 

But Bee answered cheerfully, "He has his good 
points." 



The Charm of Charleston 155 

Friendship is with Bee a sacred trust, something not 
to be lightly embarked upon, but when once under- 
taken it assumes for her life-long and loyal obligations. 
She belongs to the type of woman who having married, 
would never, however unhappily mated, divorce her 
husband, and at no matter what cost to herself would 
bear her sorrows in noble silence and live up to her 
highest ideals to the end. And sometimes Fate is 
kind to me, for Bee is my friend. 

It was early for the Garden of the Magnolias, that 
marvellous spot of beauty now frequently described 
and illustrated both in pictorial papers and in magazines. 
The boats were not running yet to the Ashley River, 
and to go first to Summerville and then a long drive to 
the garden and back again in one day meant a fatiguing 
journey, so Bee and I evolved an excellent plan. We 
found a man with a motor boat who said if we secured 
eighteen passengers he would take us on reasonable 
terms. Five people were mustered from our house, 
and the remainder from different hotels, which we 
notified of our excursion, and the next morning at ten 
o'clock we embarked. It was a warm soft spring day. 
The sky was deep blue, with a few billowy white clouds 
blown by a bright wind into eager motion. In the 
distance, a violet and pearl mist slowly lifted itself, 
leaving the fresh tender green of budding trees and 
shrubberies greener still from the soft moisture, and 
now and then a breath of yellow jessamine or honey- 
suckle floated towards us, showing that the sun had 
been kind. 

We steamed along amidst pretty scenery, quiet 
plantations on either side, many of them having his- 
torical interest and all of them former scenes of open- 
armed, hospitable gaiety. The grass at the landing of 



156 My Beloved South 

the Magnolia Gardens was as green as that of Ireland. 
The red-bud and flowering peach and plum and almond 
trees were all in blossom, and the hum of the bees 
seemed to belong to midsummer. 

A cohort of black gardeners, male and female, met 
us, the men in blue jean and the women wearing calico 
dresses and plaid head handkerchiefs, as "befo' de wa'." 
They led us politely through the winding paths, where 
on each side every known flower was grown, yellow 
and pink old-fashioned cabbage roses, the canary 
coloured tea-rose, the monthly rose, which in the South 
is a daily rose until January, and sometimes faithfully 
blooms the whole year round. The hundred-leaf rose, 
with its close rosette in the centre; the little white and 
pink Cherokee rose, the crimson and yellow rambler; 
the musky moss-rose, in great luxuriance, and there were 
wide beds of pinks and carnations, yellow, white, rose 
and red. A carnation always breathes to me of passion, 
but a clean passion; there is nothing heavy and sultry 
about its fresh perfume, it is frank ; robust and hardy. 
Even in the dry hot atmosphere of an over-heated room 
this flower, so full of vitality, refuses to die, and lasts 
for many days. A friend, young, happy, distinguished 
in his career, once travelled a day and a night to see me 
for only one hour. He gave me at our parting half a 
hundred splendid carnations, a flower for each day of 
our separation ; — before they were withered he was dead. 
I never saw him again, but every carnation throughout 
all the years brings me a fragrant memory of him. 

Near the beds of these dear flowers was a stately 
tomb of Italian marble; the negroes said it was a 
former owner who wished to sleep always amidst the 
luxuriance of the flowers he loved so well. If the 
gardens had been called the Gardens of the Camellias 



The Charm of Charleston 157 

it would not have been a misnomer, for before the 
blossoming of the magnolias they reign supreme and are 
of every colour, size, and known variety. The white 
flower was in perfection that gave Marguerite Gautier 
her poetic name. The Lady of the Camellias, one of 
which she gave to Armand Duval, saying, "When this 
flower is withered come back to me." As a contrast 
to its dazzling purity, scarlet flowers flamed on either 
side, and there were camellias of a pink so evanescent 
that it was like the blush of a fair young girl. Other 
varieties seemed to borrow the glories of them all, 
scarlet flecked with white, white splashed with crimson, 
and a pale pearl pink, the leaves deepening at one side 
into a vivid vermilion. The real queen of the garden 
was an opulent flower of a rich, pure du Barry rose, 
painted with splashes of white, as if Puck had dashed 
on the colours with reckless brush while waiting to go 
on that gay and breathless journey, when he girdled 
the world in forty minutes. The bold-faced trumpet 
flower, giving colour to the long pendants of sombre 
moss, had climbed to the very tops of some of the 
beautiful old live-oaks, the trees that in all the world I 
love the best. For one of my first memories is of my 
father finishing a chapter of Guy Mannering or The 
Bride of Lammermoor, under the spreading shade of a 
great live-oak, with little negroes and dogs tumbling 
at his feet, while I, a maiden of five, called to him from 
the porch to come, for Buttons, my pony, and Pomp, 
his horse, were waiting at the gate for our afternoon 
ride. 

There is an eternal beauty about the live-oak sur- 
passing that of all the other forest trees. With its 
great age, its superb dignity, its rough, burly bark, 
and its thousands of leaves, it is an inspiring poem: 



158 My Beloved South 

"I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not 
abide ; 
I have come ere the dawn, oh beloved, my live-oaks to hide 

In your gospelling glooms — to be 
As a lover in heaven, the marsh, my marsh, and the sea, 
my sea." 

Near the protecting branches of a splendid live-oak 
grew a perfect tree, the glory of the South, the magni- 
ficent magnolia grandifiora, in the first perfection of 
exquisite bloom. Its glossy pointed dark green leaves 
held that divine chalice of creamy white as if to shelter 
and guard its unapproachable beauty. Each flawless 
leaf of the flower seemed sculptured in fine, smooth 
ivory; its perfume was the breath of all the South, 
evanescent, yet powerful and alluring, creating a 
strange desire to breathe its manifold fragrance again 
and yet again, for it was redolent of a thousand odours, 
myrrh and sandalwood, musk and mignonette, myrtle 
and olive, orange and oleander, rose and geranium, 
mimosa and gardenia. It is all of them, yet none of 
them, but only itself, this stately grandifiora, the 
most fitting emblem of the South. 

The azaleas were not in full fiower, but they blos- 
somed thickly around a miniature lake, to the very 
water's edge, forming a frame of pink and yellow fire, 
the blue water reflecting again the rose and gold, made 
a very feast of vivid colour. A trifle to the right of 
this rainbow lake, the shrubbery seemed impenetrable, 
but I pushed my way though and my startled eyes 
rested upon a silver garden, a circle of shimmering 
patterned silver lace. It seemed a beautifiil unreal 
vision, this most strange and exquisite fairy ring, 
formed by a belt of live-oaks, one standing a little 
forward as if listening to the voices of the others; the 



A Silver Garden 159 

greenness of each tree softly and modestly veiled by 
the long, pearly grey, waving moss, which from time to 
time had fallen and been blown about, until a soft, 
light, and tender silver grey resilient carpet covered 
all the earth. Each tendril of the moss, dependent 
from the trees, was be-pearled by a light rain of the 
night before, and where the strong rays of the sun 
penetrated and shone upon the pearls they were turned 
to myriads of sparkling diamonds. And beyond this 
enchanting zone there were flashes of colour mingling 
with the subdued radiance of the silver. From the 
outside of the circle, yellow and white jessamine and 
purple wistaria and coral honeysuckle had climbed 
over the tops of the trees and softly trailed over the 
grey moss, forming on the inside an irregular fringe 
of flowers. And, peeping impudently through the 
lower branches of the trees, there appeared the saucy 
face of a pink or rose or red japonica, while here and 
there the outer edge of the carpet was brightened by an 
occasional patch of fallen white and scarlet petals, and 
underneath the tall oak, standing inside the charmed 
circle, a little ring of pointed, green leaves, with their 
starry blossoms had gallantly pushed themselves up 
through the silver moss, and, covered with dew-drops, 
they glistened like a band of translucent opals. And 
I knew that if I waited until nightfall Titania and 
Oberon and Puck would meet me there. 

No one came to see this silver garden and I was glad 
that its solitary loveliness was to be mine alone. I 
heard Bee calling and I walked down the winding path 
with long wands of bridal wreath, flowering almond, 
and trails of roses touching my face, but when I saw a 
little by-path I turned back again for I wanted this 
vision of luminous pearl and tarnished silver to be 



i6o My Beloved South 

fixed forever in my memory. And I thought of one 
who could have immortaHsed its glory, a Southern poet, 
young, gifted, beautiful, who died on the threshold of 
life. He believed that "Music was harmony — Har- 
mony was Love — and Love was God." Perhaps these 
many years he has abided in a silver garden whose 
radiance is unfading, whose light is eternal. 



CHAPTER XI 

IN SAVANNAH 

WHY on earth do you go to Savannah?" said a 
very old lady in Charleston with thick white 
hair majestically rolled back from her forehead, and 
her wrinkled hands adorned with quaint diamond 
rings, relics of her ancestors before the Revolution. 
"You won't see anything there except Jews and 
Yankees." 

"Jews," I said, "are a wonderful race. Look at the 
artists and musicians, authors and financiers they 
have given us, and for me they have been among my 
best and most serviceable friends. At the close of the 
Confederacy Mrs. Clement Clay could not have got 
to Washington to plead for the life of her husband, 
except for the whole-hearted kindness of a Jew. Don't 
you remember what she wrote in her memoirs : 

" 'The middle of November had arrived ere, by the aid 
of Mr. Robert Herstein, a kindly merchant of Hunts- 
ville — may his tribe increase' — (and so say I) — 'who 
advanced me one hundred dollars, (and material for a 
silk gown to be made when I should reach my destina- 
tion), I was enabled to begin my journey to the Capital, ' 
- — A distinguished Jew at a grand party in London was 
once my escort to supper and I ate so many olives he 
asked me if I was a Jewess." 
" i6i 



i62 My Beloved South 

"With that blunt nose of yours, my dear," said my 
friend, "he must have been a stupid Jew." 

"And," I said, "I know a true and wonderful ro- 
mance of a Jew gifted with godlike beauty, and an 
Empress. Some day I am going to tell the story and 
call it The Heart of a Jew.'' 

The lady drew herself up stiffly. "You are Catholic 
in your tastes," she said, "and what do you think of 
Yankees?" 

"Josh Billings," I said, "when asked after a tour in 
France what he thought of the French, answered, 'I 
find that generally everywhere human nature prevails. ' 
I have known very charming, agreeable, and generous 
Yankees." 

The lady said coolly, "My dear, you have been very 
lucky; but you are a Southern woman no longer, you 
are merely a citizen of the world." 

"No," I said, "that is where you are mistaken. 
The one satisfactory thing in my shorn and unsatisfac- 
tory life is that I was born a Soi\them woman. I love 
the South and everything in it. I could be, if I allowed 
myself, rigid and narrow, but I just open my heart and 
won't be. It seems to me we should all try in a meas- 
ure to understand the paean of praise written in memory 
of that brilliant Irishman, John Boyle O'Reilly: 

"'Sees he the planet and all on its girth — 
India, Columbia and Europe — his eagle-sight 

Sweeps at a glance all the wrong upon earth. 
Races or sects were to him a profanity: 

Hindoo and Negro and Kelt were as one; 
Large as mankind was his splendid humanity, 

Large in its record the work he has done. ' 

"We cannot of course reach his high altitude, at 



In Savannah 163 

least I cannot," I added, "but my beloved father, with 
his broad humanity managed it, and not only his body, 
but his soul — the very essence of him, belonged to the 
South." 

"You loved your father," said the lady. 

"I think," I said, "that every human being brought 
into contact with that noble, generous spirit loved him." 

"I too," said the lady, "loved my father. He was 
the grandest gentleman I ever knew. He came from 
Savannah, but that was, of course, before the War, 
and it was there I met my husband at a fancy ball. 
How handsome he was, dressed in black velvet as the 
Duke of Buckingham. I went as little Red Riding 
Hood, wore a red cloak, long yellow curls on either 
side of my face, and carried a basket of eggs. My 
husband had this little gold egg, which is a vinaigrette, 
made in memory of our meeting and I 've worn it on 
my chatelaine ever since. My father is buried at 
Bonaventure. Of course," she said, relenting, "you 
will enjoy Savannah as a city, but you will see that it 
does n't compare with Charleston." 

I got up to say good-bye and a quaint portrait of 
two children attracted my attention. 

"Mary Ellen and Laura Lee," said my hostess, 
"they were real Charles the First children in appear- 
ance and I always cut their hair and dressed them 
in that fashion. It was the only style that became 
them." 

Yet it is said that America is modem! America is 
what you wish to find it — intensely progressive, or 
entirely of the past and conservative. In its broad 
area any climate in the world can be foimd. Any 
taste in the world can be gratified. 

Bee said when I came in, " Swizzlegigs, I must be 



i64 My Beloved South 

getting back to Washington to work. Can you go to 
Savannah to-morrow?" 

"Yes," I said, "I can; we could have gone before 
only I dread your leaving me, and starting off to New 
Orleans alone." 

We, however, went the next day to Savannah and 
found, as in Charleston, a heavenly winter climate. 
It was warm enough to go to the theatre in the evening 
without wraps or hats. We spent the next morning 
at the Art Gallery, where they have the nucleus of an 
interesting collection of pictures. Gari Melchers, 
himself a most distinguished artist, buys for the gallery, 
and I never saw a better Hitchcock — a long stretch of 
early tulips in Holland, a very wealth of fresh, exhilar- 
ating, variegated, vivid colour. 

In the afternoon Mrs. Lester, the widow of Senator 
Rufus Lester, who for years so ably represented Georgia 
in the United States Senate, came in her motor to take 
us out to Thunderbolt, one of the picturesque and 
convenient suburbs of the city. It is on the beautiful 
Warsaw River and was named from a thunderbolt, 
which in a terrifying storm buried itself deep in the 
ground, loosening the waters which ever afterwards 
gushed forth in a bountiful spring. The sunshine was 
white and weak, and a thin gauzy mist of blue and 
lavender lingered on the river, but even while we looked 
upon it the sun shone brightly, penetrated the fair veil 
and promised the splendour of an orange and purple 
sunset. 

"That," said Mrs. Lester, pointing to a picturesque 
house, "is the Savannah Yacht Club." And as we 
motored farther along the fine road, "There is Bannon 
Lodge, famous for its wonderful variety of fish and the 
excellence with which it is cooked." When we turned 



In Savannah 165 

towards the river I saw palmetto and myrtle, orange 
and magnolia, catalpa, sweet olive and oleander, giving 
out already their thin sweet scents and promising a 
wealth of fragrance a little later in the spring. We 
were almost in sight of Bonaventure, known to me from 
a much-liked story that my father, who was born in 
Georgia, used to tell. 

In 1760, the property belonged to Colonel Mulryne, 
an Englishman. The grounds were of surpassing 
loveliness, immense live-oaks draped in moss made the 
air cool with their grateful shade. There was a large 
brick house facing the grassy terraces which extended 
to the river, and a famous grove of magnolias leading 
to the road scented all the air. Colonel Mulryne was 
entertaining a large company at dinner when he was 
informed that the roof was ablaze and there was no 
possibility of saving the house. 

"Ah," he said quickly, "then we must dine on the 
lawn." The table was quickly removed by a number 
of slaves and the dinner finished while the house burned 
to the ground. 

Cool and sustained courage is certainly one of the 
most picturesque and admirable of human traits. I 
know an ex-naval officer who had gone into business 
in New York. While giving a large dinner at the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel, he happened to look up at the special 
report of the stock market while the guests were being 
marshalled in the dining-room, and saw that through 
an unexpected panic everything he owned had been 
swept away, leaving him penniless. His face never 
changed, and no one at the dinner was more gay or 
agreeable than the self-possessed host. Next morning, 
one of the guests, a millionaire, hearing of his loss and 
remembering the way he had borne it, called upon him 



i66 My Beloved South 

and said, "I 've come to place forty thousand dollars 
at your disposal. A man with your steady nerve is 
bound to win." And he did, eventually becoming 
president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, 
with a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year. 

Colonel Mulryne rebuilt his house and was living in 
it at the beginning of the Revolution. He was a Whig, 
but his patriotism stopped at the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; and, giving shelter to Governor Wright, he 
was persuaded to accompany him when he left America 
and sailed in a man-of-war for England. Mary Mul- 
ryne, his daughter, an heiress, had married Josiah 
Tatnall, a Royalist, who in disgust also went to England 
to live. Her boys, however, born in America, wished 
to return and the eldest, Josiah, finally ran away, and 
on his arrival in Georgia joined the army of General 
Nathaniel Greene. Inheriting the cool, intrepid cour- 
age of his grandfather, he served with great distinction 
during the War of the Revolution and was rapidly 
promoted from a lieutenancy to be Colonel of the first 
Georgia regiment. In recognition of his services, part 
of his estates, including his birthplace, Bonaventure, 
were restored to him, and when the war was over he 
made a no less distinguished statesman than soldier. 
He served first in the Legislature, and was afterwards 
sent to Congress. On his return from Washington he 
was elected Governor of Georgia, and all this brilliant 
career was compassed in the short space of thirty-six 
years. Had he lived, his would doubtless have been one 
of America's most illustrious names. He was buried 
in the grounds of Bonaventure that he loved so well, 
beneath a great oak, and his son inherited the beautiful 
estate won back to the family by his father's patriotism. 
But it was not to remain with the Tatnalls, for nearly 



In Savannah 167 

a century later Bonaventure was again confiscated, 
when his grandson, Commodore Tatnall, refused to 
remain in the service of the United States Navy. He 
was the officer who in June, 1859, had helped the British 
fleet in the Peiho, giving as his reason in a despatch to 
the Navy Department " that blood is thicker than water." 
During the war with Mexico, he fought so gallantly 
that the State of Georgia had sent him a splendid sword. 
He could not turn that sword against her in her bitter 
hour of need. And yet he had been a distinguished 
officer in the United States Navy for fifty years when 
he joined the Confederacy. A whole long lifetime. 

Americans are the most patriotic people in the world, 
for theirs is a sort of double-barrelled patriotism, first 
the love of their State, of which they are inordinately 
proud, and in no lesser degree the love of the United 
States. To fold a flag and put it out of sight under 
which a man has served for fifty years, must have been 
a moment of supreme tragedy. The pain could be no 
less intense in divorcing an old wife. 

I knew an English couple who separated after fifty 
years of married happiness and the quarrel, alas, arose 
out of a book. The man in his old age, was deeply 
interested in writing his experiences of travel by land 
and sea. The lady, who had always found him an 
exemplary husband and, that rare individual, — a man 
willing to put aside his desires to please his wife, asked 
him one day to come for a drive. He refused, saying 
he was busy writing his book. She told him with 
cruel frankness that he would never find either pub- 
lishers or readers. When she came back from her 
drive he was gone, never to return, — and thus do separ- 
ations and tragedies of life grow out of trifles light 
as air. 



i68 My Beloved South 

There will be no more changes for beautiful Bonaven- 
ture, for it is now a sweet and peaceful, quiet resting- 
place for the dead, and the Tatnalls, after a life's 
feverish struggle can once more go home. Mrs. 
Lester pointed out as we passed it a handsome house, 
very interesting to me with my love and admiration 
of Thackeray, for it is said that he wrote the greater 
part of The Virginians there while visiting Andrew 
Low, the Englishman who built it. 

How Thackeray was entertained in America ! Every- 
thing this bounteous land produces — fish, flesh, fowl, 
vegetables and fruit — were served to him in lavish 
abundance by proud but anxious hostesses. He after- 
wards said that at every American table he was first 
served with "grilled hostess." The poor ladies at the 
head of their tables, fiery red, anxious and hot, had 
evidently been until the last moment occupied in 
superintending some special dish! 

There was an ancient fashion in South Carolina and 
Georgia of serving an enormous turkey which, like a 
Chinese box, contained one after the other about six 
other birds, until it finished with a rice bird, small and 
delicate enough for even the little bones to be edible. 
The juices of all the different birds, basted in fresh 
butter, were supposed to be of unique and marvellous 
flavour. Probably Mr. Thackeray ate of this gastro- 
nomic complexity on more than one occasion. 

Mrs. Clay, in A Belle of the Fifties, says: "Mr. Thack- 
eray's lecture and poetry were a red-letter occasion, 
and the simplicity of that great man of letters, as he 
recited Lord Lovel and Barbara Allen, was long after- 
wards a criterion by which others were judged." And 
in that sprightly and human book, A Diary from Dixie, 
Mrs. Chesnut writes: 



A Wakeful Night 169 

Letter from home carried Mr. Chesnut to Charleston 
to-day. Thackeray is dead. I stumbled upon Vanity 
Fair myself. I had never heard of Thackeray before. I 
think it was in 1850, I know I had been ill at the New York 
hotel, and when left alone I slipped downstairs and into a 
bookstore that I had noticed under the hotel for something 
to read. They gave me the first half of Pendennis. I can 
recall now the very kind of paper it was printed on, and 
the illustrations as they took effect upon me, and yet when 
I raved over it and was wild for the other half, there were 
people who said it was slow. " 

Even to-day there are great Thackeray lovers in 
America. When Major Judson, that brilliant officer of 
the Engineer Corps, was — luckily for the American 
army — ordered to the East to study the methods of 
fighting during the Russo-Japanese War, he carried 
with him only two books, one of them being Vanity 
Fair. On a roof garden in Washington one blazing night 
this last memorable summer, he went through a highly 
creditable examination on that wonderful book, which 
is as familiar to me as Pinkie and the Fairies. 

After a day of activity and motoring in Savannah, 
any normal human being would have slept, but it was 
my off night and if sleep comes to me at all every other 
night, it is as much as I can hope for. Fortunately I 
discovered before I went to bed that my room was bare 
of books and the manager at the office lent me two 
volumes which, although read before, interested me 
until seven o'clock next morning. One of these was 
Mrs. Chesnut 's Diary from Dixie, and contained this 
paragraph about the mother of my Nancy who had died 
in New York; 

Camden, S. C, August 2nd, 1865. 
Mary Kirkland has had experience with the Yankees. 



170 My Beloved South 

She has been pronounced the most beautiful woman on this 
side of the Atlantic and has been spoiled accordingly in all 
society. When the Yankees came, Monroe, their negro 
manservant, told her to stand up and hold two of her 
children in her arms, with the other two pressed close against 
her knees. Mammy Selina and Lizzie stood grimly on 
each side of their young missis and her children, while for 
four mortal hours the soldiers searched through the rooms 
of the house. Sometimes Mary and her children were 
roughly jostled against the wall, but Mammy and Lizzie 
were staunch supporters. The Yankee soldiers taunted the 
negro women for their foolishness in standing by their cruel 
slave-owner, and taunted Mary for being glad of the protec- 
tion of a poor ill-used slave. Monroe, meanwhile, had one 
leg bandaged and pretended to be lame, so that he might 
not be enlisted as a soldier, and kept making pathetic 
appeals to Mary. " Don't answer them back. Miss Mary, " 
said he, "let 'em say what dey want to; don't answer em 
back, don't gib em any chance to say you were impudent 
to em." 

How dramatically my poor friend Nancy began her 
life, although she was then only a baby in arms. 

A further extract from Mrs. Chesnut's diary relates 
two incidents, one tragic the other amusing. 

July 13th, 1863. 

Halcott Green came to see us. Bragg is a stern disciplin- 
arian according to Halcott, and he did not in the least 
understand citizen soldiers. In the retreat from Shiloh he 
ordered that not a gun should be fired. A soldier shot a 
chicken and then the soldier was shot. "For a chicken!" 
said Halcott, "A Confederate soldier for a chicken!" 

Mrs. McCord says that a nurse who is a beauty had 
better leave her beauty with her cloak and hat at the door. 
One lovely nurse said to a soldier whose wounds could not 
have been dangerous "Well, my good soul, what can I do 



A Wakeful Night 171 

for you?" "Kiss me, " said he. Mrs. McCord was furious 
at the woman for telHng it, for it brought her hospital into 
disrepute, and very properly. 

Frederic Norton, the frankest of humourists, once 
said to me : "The difference between a man and a woman 
is this — a woman only wants to kiss the man she loves ; 
a man will kiss any woman who will let him — tall, 
short, fair, dark, fat, thin, grave or gay." Some men 
I am sure are not quite so universally affectionate, but 
"out of evil cometh good;" the request for a kiss made 
to a friend of mine completely reconciled her to the 
short-comings of her husband. 

She had quarrelled with him and left him, and her 
idea had been to take her broken heart to the stage, 
that kind refuge for so many troubled souls. She had 
a beautiful voice which had been trained with extra- 
ordinary care by the best masters in France and Italy, 
and she carolled like a veritable canary. Her husband 
was rich and she, young, pretty, and attractive, had 
been at the head of a large establishment and had had 
not only the protection of a home, but of a man. It 
was a very different position from that of a woman 
alone in the world, who generally comes to know that 
in spite of the boasted chivalry of man, she will meet 
one at least, now and again, ready to take advantage 
of her defenceless situation. 

My friend went to sing for a fat, bald, old impresario. 
He sat at his ease on a sofa wdth arms outstretched, 
while she hurriedly unfastened her gloves, played the 
introduction to Proch's variations, and began to sing. 
She knew she was in good voice and she displayed all 
her vocal pyrotechnics with great effect. Roulades, 
the chromatic scale, trills, all came like smooth silver 



172 My Beloved South 

that morning. She improvised a little, her voice 
mounting higher and higher, and finished with a bird- 
like D sharp. Then she turned to the quiet gentleman, 
expecting that he would at least say, "Your voice has 
been admirably trained." But what he did say was, 
"Come and kiss me!" He did n't even offer to get up 
and go to her, so sure was he of his power. There he 
sat, old, fat, common, vulgar, calmly asking such a 
favour as a matter of course. It really was an intensely 
comical situation, but my friend had no sense of humour. 
"Think of the humiliation," she said; "I almost die at 
the memory." 

I sent for her husband. Luckily he had no sense 
of humour either. He wanted at once to thrash the 
impresario for insulting his wife. "He would show 
him," etc., etc. I suggested that if his wife had been 
in her own home, which she would never have left 
except for his vagaries, the kiss would not have been 
demanded, and a sensible reconciliation followed. 

I am terribly opposed to a condemnation based upon 
circumstantial evidence. What a commentary upon 
it is this other little story, taken from A Diary in Dixie: 

April 22nd, 1861. 
Arranging my photograph book. On the first page 
Colonel Watts. And here goes a sketch of his life: Beau- 
fort Watts, bluest blood, gentleman to the tips of his 
fingers, chivalry incarnate, he was placed in charge of a 
large amount of money and bank bills. The money be- 
longed to the State and he was on the way to deposit it. 
When he went to bed at night he placed the roll on a table 
at his bedside, locked himself in, and slept soundly. The 
next morning the money was gone. Well, all who knew him 
believed him innocent. Of course he searched and they 
searched, but to no purpose — the money was gone. It 



A Diary of Dixie 173 

was a damaging story and a cloud rested upon him. Years 
after, the house in which he had taken that disastrous sleep 
was pulled down. In the wall behind the wainscot was 
found his pile of money. How the rats got it through so 
narrow a crack was most mysterious. Suppose that house 
had been burned, or the rats had gnawed up the bills past 
recognition. People in power understood how that proud 
man had suffered those many years in silence when men 
looked askance at him. The country tried to repair the 
work of blasting the man's character. He was made 
Secretary of Legation to Russia, and was afterwards our 
Consul at Santa Fe de Bogota. When he was too old to 
wander far afield they made him Secretary to all the Gov- 
ernors of South Carolina in regular succession. 

Yet another extract from the diary : 

Camden, S. C, Nov. 5th, 1863. 
Mattie Reedy (I knew her as a handsome girl in Washing- 
ton several years ago) got tired of hearing Federals abusing 
John Morgan. One day they were worse than ever in their 
abuse and she grew restive. By way of putting a mark 
against the name of so rude a girl the Yankee officer said, 
"What is your name?" "Write, Mattie Reedy now, but 
by the grace of God, I hope one day to call myself the wife 
of John Morgan." She did not know Morgan, but he 
eventually heard the story — a good joke it was said to be. 
But he made it a point to find her out ; and as she was as 
pretty as she was patriotic, by the grace of God she is now 
Mrs. Morgan! These timid Southern women under the 
gims can be brave enough. 

The Fates evidently liked Mattie Reedy. They 
gave her what she wanted, and had no such surprise 
in store for her as they had for an American girl who 
when travelling by carriage in Italy with her mother 
stopped at a wretched, muddy, damp, dirty little 
village for supper. It w^as late, the horses were tired, 



174 My Beloved South 

the idea had been to spend the night there, but her 
sensibilities were so offended that she urged her mother 
to try the next Httle township, which she agreed un- 
wiUingly enough to do. In Rome, the following winter, 
the girl met an Italian who lived in a tumble-down 
villa in that same abhorred village. She married him. 
It was a love match and they were poor, so she went 
back to the shabby villa and lived in the impossible 
hamlet without leaving it for seven years. 

How Fate disciplines us with mocking laughter and 
quaint surprises. "I cannot bear it," "I would die 
with that," and straightway, both inflictions are sent 
to us. She had a rod in pickle for Frances Anne Kemble 
when her marriage with Pierce Butler was ordained. 
He was a handsome, not too brilliant American, whose 
wealth all came from his plantations in Georgia. 
There was nothing of the assimilative blood of her 
French grandfather in this admirable lady. She was 
a straightforward, respectable British matron, though 
she lived in both Pennsylvania and Georgia; and in 
spite of the appreciation and fortime she received when 
she gave her Shakespearean readings throughout the 
country, she disliked America cordially, and had little 
good to say of it. When she wielded that conscientious 
and prolific pen of hers, it has always the heavy touch 
of the tragedian, and never by any chance the lighter 
one of the comedian. 

I was fond of a certain little old-fashioned poem 
which she gives in the records of her girlhood, a little 
song called the Spirit of Morn. 

Now on their couch of rest 
Mortals are sleeping 
While in dark, dewy vest, 



A Diary of Dixie 175 

Flowerets are weeping. 
Ere the last star of night 
Fades in the fountain, 
My finger of rosy light 
Touches the mountain. 

Far on his filmy wing 
Twihght is wending, 
Shadows encompassing 
Terrors attending: 
While my foot's fiery print, 
Up my path showing, 
Gleams with celestial tint, 
Brilliantly glowing. 

Now from my pinions fair 

Freshness is streaming. 

And from my yellow hair 

Glories are gleaming. 

Nature with pure delight 

Hails my returning, 

And Sol, from his chamber bright, 

Crowns the young morning. 

And there was a time when she seemed to me the 
sweetest poet in the world. It was in my extreme 
youth at (to be exactly accurate) fifteen and a half, 
after my parting from a young artillery lieutenant, a 
brand new graduate of West Point, all brightest of 
brass buttons, bluest of eyes and untiringest of dancers. 
When my first love letter from him followed me to 
Texas he quoted her poem of Absence: 

What shall I do with all the days and hours 
That must be counted ere I see thy face? 
How shall I charm the interval that lowers 
Between this time and that sweet hour of grace? 



176 My Beloved South 

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense, 
Weary with longing? — shall I flee away 
Into past days, and with some fond pretence 
Cheat myself to forget the present day? 

Oh ! how, or by what means, may I contrive 
To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? 
How may I teach my drooping hope to live 
Until that blessed time, and thou art here? 

I will tell thee; for thy sake, I will lay hold 
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee 
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told 
While thou, beloved one ! art far from me. 

I will this dreary blank of absence make 
A noble task-time, and will therein strive 
To follow excellence, and to o'ertake 
More good than I have won, since yet I live. 

So may this doomed time build up in me 
A thousand graces which shall thus be thine; 
So may my love and longing hallowed be, 
And thy dear thought an influence divine. 

And he ended the letter by imploring me to return 
to Washington and end as soon as possible the "doomed 
time" of our separation. But long before this dreary 
blank of absence was over there was a curly-haired 
officer of the Engineers, and a fair Cavalryman looming 
in the horizon, also the Captain of Engineers had the 
advantage of writing original and very eulogistic 
poetry, so my taste for Frances Anne as a poet soon 
sufifered an eclipse. 

No one in Savannah remembered that Frances 
Kemble had lived both at St. Simeon's and in Butler's 



A Diary of Dixie 177 

Island. Yet not only was her home there, but she 
had really appreciated the beauties of the country. 
In 1838 she wrote: 

Last Thursday evening we left out hotel at Charleston 
for the steamboat which was to carry us to Savannah. 
About the middle of the day we landed at the Island of 
Edisto which is famous for producing the finest cotton in 
America, therefore I suppose in the world. On Sunday 
morning the day broke most brilliantly over these Southern 
waters and as the sun rose the atmosphere became clear 
and warm as in the early Northern summer. We now 
approached Butler's Island and on landing from the boat, 
we were seized, pulled, pushed, carried, dragged and all but 
lifted in the air by the clamour of the black multitude (the 
slaves). They seized our clothes, kissed them, then our 
hands, and almost wrung them off. "Howdy Missy!" 
"God bless Missy!" "Hallelujah! Missy 's come !" they 
cried . . . 

And later she wrote from St. Simeon's: 

March, 1839. 
I wish, dear Emily, I could for an instant cause a vision 
to rise before you of the perfect paradise of evergreens 
through which I have been opening paths on our estate 
in an island called St. Simeon's, lying half in the sea and 
half in the Altamaha. Such noble growth of dark-leaved, 
wide spreading oaks; such exquisite natural shrubberies of 
magnolia, wild myrtle and bay, all glittering evergreens of 
various tints, bound together by trailing garlands of wild 
jessamine, whose yellow bells like tiny golden cups, exhale 
a perfume like that of the heliotrope and fill the air with 
sweetness, and cover the woods with perfect curtains of 
bloom; while underneath all this spread the spears and 
fans of the dwarf palmetto, and innumerable tufts of a little 
shrub whose delicate leaves are pale green underneath and 



1 78 My Beloved South 

a polished dark brown above, while close to the earth cUngs 
a perfect carpet of thick growing green, almost Hke moss, 
bearing clusters of little white blossoms Uke enamelled stars ; 
I think it is a species of Euphrasia. 

At least something of the charm of my dear Southern 
land had penetrated her Northern spirit. 

In the morning when Bee came in she foimd me with 
Mrs. Chesnut's book still in my hand. 

"Is it possible," she asked, "that you have been 
reading all night?" 

I told her it was, but nevertheless I felt fairly fresh, 
quite well enough to go for a sight-seeing walk after 
breakfast. 

Savannah has any number of excellent shops. It 
was a perfectly beautiful morning and we stopped to 
look at the pretty spring fashions in the windows. 
Walking along Liberty Street I had the impression of 
pearls in the air, but it was only a negro shoe-black 
smiling a broad smile and disclosing two perfect rows 
of milk-white teeth. "Mek yo' shoes lak black dia- 
monds." And as my shoes had never been "lak black 
diamonds" I stopped. He brushed, and he blew long 
breaths upon them, and he smiled and blew again, 
and brushed and blew, lifted each foot, cleaned the 
soles, and when he had finished they certainly did 
resplendently shine. I asked his charge. "Twenty-five 
cents," he said. "Twenty-five cents! Isn't that very 
dear?" Tasked. "Not, " he said, "when I brefifs 'em. 
Eff I jes blacks 'em it 's only fifteen cents, but eff I 
breffs 'em it 's twenty-five." Then he smiled his superb, 
appealing smile, and I willingly gave him his quarter. 

"I suppose," I said to Bee, "breathing on them is 
an extra effort. He has a great deal of breath; they 
feel quite damp." 



A Diary of Dixie 179 

We talked about taking the trolley to the beautiful 
old plantation of "The Hermitage," where the long 
row of slave quarters are still to be seen. But Bee 
said that we really ought to go down first to the wharf 
and see the cotton. "Don't forget," she said, "that 
Savannah is the largest cotton port on the Atlantic and 
the third largest lumber port in the world." 

The wharf proved a most busy and intensely inter- 
esting place, and Savannah will find it an immense 
advantage to be the nearest port to the Panama Canal, 
when that work of genius is completed. 

The morning passed all too quickly and in the after- 
noon Judge Speer, that courtly and accomplished 
gentleman, came with his wife to call upon us. He 
brought me a book of Sketches of Prominent Men of 
America to read in the train and in the evening Bee 
and I separated. 

She went back to Washington and her Art School, 
and I alas, started alone for New Orleans. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MULES OF GEORGIA 

"Take out yo' mule, boys, 
Hang up yo' gear; 
Daytime is gone, boys. 
Night-time is here. " 

ALTHOUGH fine gentlemen in Virginia refused as 
late as 1820 to breed the mule, he has become 
since that date almost as much of an institution in the 
South as the palm leaf fan. 

After the war, in 1865, a cousin of mine who had 
gallantly served his turn in the Confederate army re- 
turned to his home in Georgia. He had left a pretty 
little white house of two storeys, with balconies stretch- 
ing across the front, overgrown with flowering vines. 
At the rear there was a neat stable, a smoke-house, a 
wash-house by the never-failing old spring, a big barn 
which held enough hay to feed the cattle for the winter, 
and aU the usual comfortable outhouses of a Southern 
plantation. His place lay directly in the path of 
Sherman's march to the sea. He returned in his 
ragged grey clothes, with a tarnished star on his collar, 
and the bridle of a big gaunt mule over his arm, to find 
even the land blackened by fire. The only evidence 
of former habitation was a handful of salt under one 
of the charred logs of the smoke-house. 

A few negroes agreed to work on the chance of a cotton 

180 



The Mules of Georgia i8i 

crop. He then cut down from the primeval forest near 
by enough logs to make a rude cabin, and to this home 
he brought his wife and three Httle children to begin 
life over again. Their sole and only dependence was 
Satan, a mule who in the first place had inherited from 
his mother a defiant, reckless, suspicious mind, and, 
in the second, had begun life under the management 
of a rather cruel negro. Consequently, his disposition 
was early made sour, resentful, and pessimistic. 

Almost in his colthood the war came on, and he 
changed the negro for another master and the strenuous 
life of a hard-worked Union mule. His indifference 
to calamity caused him always to place himself in the 
front of the battle, and he was very soon shot in one 
of his hind legs. With his excellent constitution, he 
rapidly recovered, and was later captured by the Con- 
federate artillery. With them he served until the end 
of the war, his disposition getting daily more cranky, 
and his views of life more saturnine. Every time he 
hauled a heavy gun it always gave his lame leg a recur- 
rent pain. He had no faith in the goodness of man, 
either white or black. He had no affection for any 
human being and was filled with bitterness and cunning. 
If a horse or a mule stood too near him he invariably 
left the mark of either his teeth or his hoofs somewhere 
about the unfortunate animal, and though of enormous 
size, he had the agility of a cat in his movements. 

More than one negro had to be taken to the hospital 
with literally a terrible sinking of the stomach after one 
of the mule's hind feet had been planted there violently 
and unexpectedly. His feet, indeed, as he had no 
hands, were against every man, and he felt that every 
man was against him. Anything more resentful, more 
hopeless or full of scorn and wickedness than Satan 



1 82 My Beloved South 

could not be found in the world. Even his splendid 
strength and robust health never lifted the black clouds 
that environed his sad mule estate. He rarely lifted 
his voice, but when he did his "heehaw" was full of 
Satanic rage. 

This was the capital that my cousin brought home 
from the war. 

One of the negroes, whose business it was to load the 
waggon with logs for Satan to haul from the woods to 
the former site of the house, said, "Dat mule suttenly 
am got de right name. Dere could n't a been one found 
better suited to him, an' he look like it too. Dere 
ain't no time when he can't show de white ob his eye, 
an' he jes' curl up his lip at you and frof at de mouf if 
you speak to him, like his whole soul wuz full ob hate. 
He suttenly is a scornful mule. Sometimes he eben 
scorns de fodder, but I will say he can do 'bout three 
times de work of an' ordinary mule, an' dere 's one 
thing to be said 'bout him, he will work. It seem like 
to me he got some secret sorrow, an' he des tries to 
fergit it by his job, 'cause if he took it into his head not 
to work, it would be des like gettin' one of dese here 
ellifants to move." 

And early and late Satan and the Major were up 
and stirring — three o'clock in the morning often found 
them ploughing. "The Lord tempers the wind to the 
shorn lamb" — sometimes. There certainly never was 
such a crop as those first years of cotton and corn. 
Every acre yielded two bales, and the silky gold of 
the myriads of corn tassels promised a rich harvest 
for the autumn. 

A little smoke-house had been built, and the Major 
had bought several pigs that were being fattened for 
the winter's hams and bacon. They were allowed to 



The Mules of Georgia 183 

run at large, and had made a deep crescent -shaped hole 
under the logs at the back of the house. One joyous 
day for Satan the Major was obliged to go to Atlanta 
and he was given a holiday. Such a thing had not 
happened to him since he ran by the side of his mammy, 
and he became quite active and gay. He ran round 
the fields kicking his heels in the air, and finally lay 
down to take a good wallow, but unfortunately he 
stuck his great head in the hollow place under the 
smoke-house and had n't enough horse sense, being a 
mule, to get it out again. There he lay screaming and 
kicking and floundering about, with his legs flying round 
like the arms of a windmill. No negro dared to go 
near those horrible heels that were ready to destroy 
anything within range. 

Jenny Lilly, the Major's wife, attracted by the noise, 
came out of the house and her imagination at once 
projected the consequences of this scene. It meant 
future desolation — the mule would die, for there was 
no way of extricating him, the splendid cotton crop 
and all those plumes of corn tassels would mean nothing. 
How could they get the bales of cotton to Atlanta? 
How were the bushels of corn to be hauled to the rail- 
road? And success seemed so near — even the new 
frame house was just in sight. She covered her face 
with her hands and cried like a child. What could be 
done? 

Then an idea occurred to her. She went into the 
smoke-house and, regardless of the curling lips and wild 
eyes of the mule, she seized his head and with super- 
human strength pushed it until it just escaped the logs. 
Satan was free! Her arms were covered with blood 
and she was almost in a fainting condition. As for 
Satan, one of the negroes wanted to shoot him at once 



1 84 My Beloved South 

and put him out of his agony. The whole side of his 
long head was torn and bleeding; the bare flesh could 
be seen; one eye, apparently, was blind, and there 
he stood, a horribly skinned, maimed, and dangerous 
creature. 

Jenny's greatest attraction was her soft, pretty, 
caressing voice. She fearlessly v/ent quite near the 
poor suffering creature, and began to condole with him, 
"Oh honey," she said, "oh honey, don't die and ruin 
us." It was the first time in his life he had heard that 
word and it sounded very sweet to his ears. "Honey," 
how different from "damned beast." But what was 
to be done? One negro had already gone to the house 
and loaded a pistol. "Miss Jinny," he said, "dere 
ain't no use in de worl' try in' to do nothin' wid dat 
mule, he des boun' to die. De wedder is so hot, his head 
will mortify in a day. Dere ain't no more use in tryin' 
to sabe him, den dere would be, to 'spect a cool stream 
ob water to come out ob dis here dry rock." 

But a woman is usually dauntless and resourceful 
in the interest of the man she loves. Miss Jinny 
pictured the Major coming home in his old grey soldier 
clothes — he still wore his uniform minus the star and 
epaulets — and the death of Satan would be a too cruel 
and horrible blow to him. Who would break the news? 
And something had touched Satan; some chord in his 
memory had been awakened; perhaps as a colt a little 
darkey had given him a bit of bread and honey. Now, 
with his great head sore and bleeding he was standing 
quite still, tortured but evidently thinking. 

Miss Jinny went fearlessly up to him, took him by 
the mane, and led him to the little log house. There 
was a long window opening into the kitchen. She 
placed him near it and when she went in she took a pone 



The Mules of Georgia 185 

\ 

of com bread, recklessly covered it with butter, and 
held it out to Satan. He put his huge head through 
the window, and bit by bit she fed him. Then she 
gave him a drink of cold water. By this time the flies 
had begun to settle on the bare flesh. Miss Jinny then 
filled a bucket with fresh water and sponged the wound 
gently, oh so gently, scraped an old linen sheet into a 
square of lint, put it all over the raw flesh, made an 
enormous linseed poultice and laid it comfortingly 
over the lint. Strange to say, Satan stood perfectly 
still while the poultice, quite a yard long and three 
quarters of a yard wide, was gently but firmly bound 
around his big head. 

For two weeks or more Miss Jinny was up day and 
night, stirring linseed and poulticing that great, black, 
stubborn head. Never during that time did he attempt 
to bite her, nor was he in any way vicious. At the end 
of the fortnight he gave the first instance of his refor- 
mation; he put his black nose on her hand and kept it 
there for quite a minute. This was in appreciation of 
a beautiful sort of mule baby talk, that had been evolved 
for his condition. He could not at first believe that 
any human being had such a sweet voice and such a 
sweet nature, and so much confidence in mules. 
When he heard, "Hold still honey, poor good honey, 
Miss Jinny would n't hurt her old mule for all the 
world," he felt his life-long cynicism flowing away like 
honey. At last the climax was reached when the nine 
months old baby was lifted up, and put his soft arms 
around Satan's neck, bubbled, cooed, kissed the white 
star on his forehead, and laughed and tried to poke 
his finger in Satan's eye. There was only one visible, 
for the poultices were still over the other. 

He was a changed mule; all his black bitter moods 



1 86 My Beloved South 

had softened, his faith in human nature was awak- 
ened, his love of mankind was fast being developed. 
At any rate there was one woman, slim and tall, with 
a sweet anxious face, gentian-blue eyes and hands never 
idle, who worked from daylight until dark, for whom 
Satan could really have died. When his convalescence 
was over and he began to work again and was put back 
into the plough, he kept one weather eye on that magic 
window, outside of which he had stood for so many hot 
and feverish days, and where he had found gentle 
hands, and heard for the first time in his life words of 
sympathy and tender love. 

The moment the plough stopped he turned, gently 
trotted to the kitchen, put his huge head in the window, 
and patiently waited for his Miss Jinny. Every night 
he had his little pone of com bread and butter or an 
autumn apple or some little delicacy. He even pre- 
tended to have a taste for bananas, notwithstanding he 
considered them a most ejffeminate fruit, without the 
least flavour, but then Miss Jinny and the children ate 
them, that was enough. Whatever they offered him, 
like Adam with the apple, "he did eat." 

The next year when the second crop came, there was 
enough money to buy a basket phaeton. Satan actu- 
ally allowed Miss Jinny to harness him to it, although 
he fotmd it a most trivial affair, and drive to the near- 
est little town, about three miles distant and back 
again. 

After his recovery he had a great deal more white 
hair than the star on his forehead, as it had grown in 
patches of black and white all over his long head. 
With his gay harness and jingling bells, everyone 
stopped to look at him, but Miss Jinny did n't mind, 
for she said that after the Major and her children, 



The Mules of Georgia 187 

Satan was really first in her affections. She petted 
him, called him "Satan-honey," "Satan-angel," and to 
the day of his death he was allowed to stand with his 
head in the kitchen, while he ate his evening meal. 

His heart had been unearthed, his affections had been 
developed, and this had made him the gracious and 
tolerant mule that he had become. He was even 
amiable towards the darkies. The ploughman said, 
"I tell you what it is. Miss Jinny's bin dat mule's 
salvation. He 's bin on de mourners' bench shoutin' 
an' gone an' got religion. 'Tain't nothin' else could a 
done it. Whenever he see her he do jes' like de glory 
ob God done shine on him. Maybe mules is got souls ; 
I tell you I b'lieve dis one is, he 's gone sho' nuff from 
de sinner to de saint. Why you can even rely on him, 
an' dat ain't natchul for no mule. Eve'y day I watches 
him, spectin' a outbreak, but it ain't come yit. Maybe 
it never will. An' his eye is des as sof as a dove." 

When they could afford a cook and the negro woman 
first came, Satan showed some of the old spirit and 
gave the tip of her ear one small nip. But perhaps it 
was just as well, as she was the greatest "borrower" 
in the neighbourhood, and the Major and Miss Jinny, 
at that time could not afford to have little sacks of 
coffee, and sugar and flour and jugs of molasses carried 
away. Satan had sound instincts after all; he brayed 
triumphantly and kicked up his legs with joy when 
the cook left, and Miss Jinny again handed him his 
com bread. 

He lived to be very old, his teeth were all worn away, 
and he could no longer chew. Miss Jinny with her 
own hands made him delicious com mashes ; the children 
wove daisy chains for his neck, and basking in consider- 
ation and love, he forgot all the sorrows of his youth 



i88 My Beloved South 

in the happiness of his old age (oh, thrice happy miile) ! 
and met a gentle death with calmness and fortitude. 
The last words he heard were Miss Jinny's blessed ones 
of long ago, "Oh, honey, don't die." And he would 
have lived for her if he could, but he was old and weak; 
his time had come. The chilflren, big boys now, 
built a paling fence round his grave and cut on a little 
block of limestone: "Here lies Satan, Miss Jinny's old 
Angel Mule, He combined all the virtues of a mule 
and a horse. His family loved him. August 1875." 
And although he was only a black devil of an outcast 
mule, Love never worked a greater miracle than when 
he gave Satan a gentle trusting heart. 

Last summer a group of gentlemen went hunting in 
Maine. One night around the camp-fire a prize was 
offered to the man who could tell the best animal 
story. That delightful lover of all animal nature, 
Thompson Seton, was to be the umpire, and the prize 
was a set of his delightful books. Dr. Venning of 
West Virginia won it with the following story: 

A retired gentleman jockey [he said], living near Charles- 
ton, a mighty good fellow of an inventive turn of mind, had 
been lucky in his dealings with a man in Saratoga who had 
won several races with Virginia bred horses. One day going 
through a field he noticed a negro ploughing with a young, 
agile, good looking, intelligent black mule which, when 
unhitched from the plough, instead of going home by the 
road with the other mules, leaped a six foot fence with a 
"hee" and with an exultant "haw" ahghted on the other 
side, nimbly trotted over the field, with a regular profes- 
sional gait, took another fence, and was eating his oats, 
almost before the other mules had started by the regular 
road. The gentleman jockey turned to the ploughman and 
said, " Don't put that mule in the plough again; I see glory 



The Mules of Georgia 189 

and fame awaiting him in the North." He then sent for a 
veterinary surgeon, renowned for the skill with which he 
used the knife, and told him to fashion the mule's ears and 
tail according to the pattern of a thoroughbred horse. 
This was done. The cuts healed quickly, he was clipped 
and curried until he looked like a piece of shining satin, 
and although his head was somewhat long and his nose 
rather fiat, this was not noticed when he was in rapid 
motion, leaping into the air like a deer, and taking any fence 
that came. 

When his training was finished the man from New York 
was invited to come down and inspect the wonderful 
jumper. He came, and the mule, untrue to the traditions 
of his race, behaved not with contrariness, but quite as a 
thoroughbred steeplechaser. He ran like a steam engine 
round the track, and a five-barred hurdle seemed to him a 
positive joy. The Northern sportsman, tremendously sur- 
prised said, "He 's fast, but there 's something queer about 
him. His head looks to me very bony; and is n't one ear a 
trifle longer than the other?" The Virginia jockey said, 
"My dear fellow, you 're not running his head, it 's his 
legs you are after. Did you ever see anything like him?" 
"No," said the man, "I never did." So he agreed to pay 
ten thousand dollars for the wonderful steeplechase horse, 
and he was sent on a special train to Saratoga. 

The day of the races came, and he won everything. When 
the horses were put in line he stood at the head, waiting 
for the blue ribbon to be placed on his proudly arched 
neck, victory in his eye and pride written all over him, 
when suddenly he seemed to collapse, his head dropped 
down with a humbleness of which even the least respecting 
cab horse would not be guilty, his big upper lip curved back, 
showing all of his mule teeth, and the air was filled with 
an agonised bray. "Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw." The 
blue ribbon in the judge's hand waved as if a Texas norther 
had struck it. The dread secret was out, and the horse was 
submerged in the mule. 



190 My Beloved South 

I don't know why it is that the most niifianly of 
all the mules in the world seem to come from Georgia. 
The inimitable history of this one is described over the 
telephone. 

"Hello — yassah — hello — dis Marse Henry?" 

" Yassah — dis Bob — ^yassah — Maud, dat ar mule, she 
dun bawk ! Not far — 'bout two blocks outen de stable 
— Yassah." 

"Oh, we dun dun dat, Marse Henry. Yassah — we 
dun twis' her tail." 

"Yassah — little ole' trav'lun man f'um Boston — 
he twis' her tail. Yassah, he 's in de hospittle — dey 
dun kerried him ober dare." 

"Yassah — he 's hurt mighty bad, Marse Henry, but 
dey '11 take keer ob him in de hospittle." 

"Yassah, Marse Henry, we dun dat too, we tied up 
her fore foot — yassah." 

"Nawsuh — nawsuh — hit didn't wuck — she had two 
hind foots lef." 

"Yassah — yassah — nice man whut preaches — 
yassah he said no mule could do it wid one foot tied 
up." 

"Yassah — yassah, but she dun dun it, yassah — 
biffed him in de stumick — de p'leece pourin' water on 
his head now — yassah." 

"Yassah — yassah — we dun dat too — tied a horse 
hair 'roun her year." 

"Yassah, yassah — a big fat man, yassah — jes' passin' 
by — don't know his entitlement — yassah." 

"Nawsuh — nawsuh — not a bery big piece — ^jes' bit 
a little chunk outen his jowl — it 's bleedin' right smart 
but he ain't hurt much." 

"Yassah — yassah — dey are sewin' up his jaw — right 
now — he 's all right." 



The Mules of Georgia 191 

"Yassah — yassah — we dun built a fire under her 

too, yassah." 

"Bum part ob de cart? yassah." 

"Yassah — yassah — dun burn right smart ob de cart. 
Dat 's exactly what I 'se been try in' to tell you, Marse 
Henry — dun burn de whole cart all up, but I did n't 
want to shock you, an' I wuz jes' gwine to ax you when 
you gwine send a nurr' cart down heah sah, yassah." 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE SUWANEE RIVER 

List, e'en now a wild bird sings, 
And the roses seem to hear, 

Every note that thrills my ear, 
Rising to the heavens clear, 

And my soul soars on its wings. 



Father Ryan. 



IN Florida, that land of flowers and of birds, it is said 
the mocking-birds sing more sweetly than anywhere 
else in all the world. 

On a mellow summer afternoon, when even the air, 
hushed to stillness, seemed waiting, there lay dying in 
a long, low, white cottage covered with trumpet flowers 
and honeysuckle, a little child. Her father and mother, 
bowed with grief, were kneeling by the bedside and her 
negro Mammy stood over her, with all her strength 
turned to pain, listlessly moving a palm leaf fan. Out- 
side the window grew a splendid live-oak, the noble 
tree that inspired Sidney Lanier's exquisite appeal: 

Teach me the terms of silence, preach me 
The passion of patience. 
Lift me, impeach me, 
And there, oh there! 

As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, 
pray me a myriad prayer. 

From its branches came the silver note of a mocking- 

192 



The Suwanee River 193 

bird. He sang with crystalline sweetness, as if to pour 
out his pure heart in one last gush of melody. It was 
thrillingly, appealingly tender, then piercingly tri- 
umphant, and finally victoriously exultant. 

In the midst of his silent grief the father could not 
endure those tuneful, iridescent dew-drops of sound; 
he arose from his knees and went out into the garden 
to frighten the bird away. As he stood under the tree 
the notes mounted higher and still higher, up ! up ! up ! 
until they floated away into blue ether and then seemed 
to break all together into one exultant chord of soul- 
stirring harmony. There was a moment of profound 
silence, then the bird dropped dead at his feet. He 
picked it up and went into the house to find the negro 
Mammy closing the blue eyes of his little girl, and he 
placed the dead bird in the little dead hand. Was it, 
he wondered, the song of an angel or the song of a bird? 

One bitter cold winter day, long ago in New York, an 
accumulation of homesickness flooded my soul, and I 
determined to drop my work and hear the mocking- 
bird sing once more. Going to Texas by train was too 
expensive for me in those days, so I went by boat, and 
was luckily accompanied by my friend Phoebe, a most 
agreeable companion, and by far the wittiest woman I 
have ever known, for her wit was innocent, gay, im- 
personal, infectious, and never hurt a human being in 
the world. 

We left New York in a driving snowstorm, and in 
two days we were sailing into perpetual sunshine with 
the Atlantic as calm as a lake. The only fellow-pas- 
senger that I recollect was a girl baby, a very beautiful 
child about a year old, with little soft, gold rings of 
hair all over her head, dark eyes with black fringes, a 
dimple in either cheek and in her chin, and the gayest, 



194 My Beloved South 

happiest little laugh I have ever heard.— " There are 
only three things real on all the earth, Birth, Mother 
love and a little child's Mirth." — She was travelling 
alone with her nurse, a worried-looking, but very kind 
negro mammy who told us the child's history. 

Her father, a young clergyman, had died of consump- 
tion leaving a family of five children. It was not long 
before the mother developed the same disease. Before 
her death she wished to see all her little flock cared for, 
and so, one by one, she had given them away to people 
who wished to adopt them, and a lady from Key West 
was going to take the last one, the baby. What sorrow 
it must have been to the Spartan mother to give up 
that dimpled darling before the end came! 

When we arrived at Key West, although in December, 
it was the most heavenly summer day, and in the dusk 
of the evening we saw myriads of roses lifting their 
pink-and-white and scarlet buds and blossoms in the 
soft, dewy air. The first three people to board the boat 
were the baby's new family. First came a lady, dark, 
tall, and vigorous, with quick, capable movements, 
dressed in a black tailor-made gown. She wore a little 
black hat on her abundant hair, and carried a charming 
bouquet of Cloth of Gold roses in her hand. Walking 
ciuickly to the nurse she said, "Is this my baby, my 
little Margaret?" 

She took the child in her arms with a most beautiful, 
close maternal embrace and, turning, called to her 
husband, "Harry, come quickly, our daughter has 
arrived!" A tall gentleman, with an indulgent smile, 
stepped across the deck followed by three sturdy, dark 
rather shy little boys. "Hurry up, boys," said the 
lady, "here is your little sister, come and kiss her." 
And all the boys stood in a row while the little, golden- 



The Suwanee River 195 

haired child cooed, made fluttering noises, and held out 
her arms towards the eldest, who carried her off the 
boat, the mother and father, the two younger boys, 
and the nurse, following. It was such a pretty, attract- 
ive picture, particularly after New York, where children 
are not convenient and often are not wanted even by 
their own parents. 

And, oh, what a night of nights we spent at Key West ! 
The boat cast anchor on account of our heavy cargo, 
and we did not leave until the next morning at nine 
o'clock. Phoebe and I — dear, witty Phoebe, who is 
now waiting for me on the other side — went up on 
deck to sit for an hour or two, but the glory of the 
night was so great, so stupendous, so wonderful that 
we never went below until seven o'clock next morning. 
There was a full moon of such penetrating radiance 
that we could see the clear sapphire colour of the sky, 
with occasional clouds of silver floating across it, and 
the sea was like an enormous looking-glass, reflecting 
all the glories of the world. Phoebe said, " I understand 
now 

" 'Peace, deep as the sleeping sea, 
When the Stars their myriads glass 
In its blue immobility.'" 

The sapphire chalice of the heavens, studded with 
glittering stars, and the silver clouds were all reflected 
in its smooth glittering surface, and there were many 
flying fish of purple, of azure and silver, leaping out of 
the still water, like amphibious butterflies, leaving a 
shower of diamonds in their wake. As the morning 
dawned, the wind came up out of the sea and rippled 
a thousand little foam-crested waves into being, and 
on each one rode a tiny, opalescent craft in full sail, of 



196 My Beloved South 

pink and gold, and mauve and orange, for a shoal of 
flying fish were floating out to deep water for their 
morning swim. 

There was a glow of rose in the East, at first of the 
palest pink then gradually deepening and, inch by 
inch, the sun began to push his luminous head up into 
this rainbow world of marvellous colour. But the 
moon, in her sea of blue, shone bravely on, till at last 
there was a silver moon in a sapphire sky in the West, 
and a golden sun in a roseate sky in the East. Between 
the sunshine and the moonshine there was a great 
dividing bridge of thousands of little clouds, making 
an immense path of translucent opalescent enamel, 
like the scales of a giant silver fish, some of them pink, 
and some of them silver, and some of them gold. And 
the blue, blue water was so clear we could look down 
into its depths and see, shining on the golden sand, a 
lost bit of silver. Far away to the South, the flying- 
fish were disappearing like fairy shallops of mother-of- 
pearl. To the right lay Key West, embowered in 
flowers, a little white, smokeless town (for there 
were no chimneys, save those of the kitchens). A 
bright wind came up and freshened all the world, and 
we went downstairs permeated and intoxicated with 
the vivid beauty of that scene. 

It was something of which painters have dreamed. 
It was Turner's visions quickened into air, and light, 
and harmony. All that he ever imagined or painted 
of subtle, pellucid, penetrating, soul-satisfying, trans- 
parent colour was in this marvellous picture of Key 
West. 

My mother and grandfather always loved Florida, 
and my mother talked of it continually, but I am sure 
neither one of them ever saw anything so beautiful as 



The Suwanee River 197 

my unforgotten night and morning there. And it is 
Florida that has produced the American song best 
known to all the world. 

A little time ago six Southern people were dining in 
a pretty house in London, and one of them announced 
that he had crossed the Suwanee River between Texas 
and Louisiana. The other four jeered at the assertion, 
but at the same time were absolutely vague as to the 
geography of this river. In spite of the world-wide 
reputation of the song which makes so pathetic an 
appeal to many great singers and has become to one 
famous vocalist her favourite encore, there was but 
one person at the table who knew the situation of the 
Suwanee River, which has its source in southern Georgia 
and flows south through Florida into the Gulf of 
Mexico, and her knowledge came not from a map but 
from an unforgotten story. 

A friend of mine, [she said], a well-known fisherman from 
the North, went to Florida for Tarpon fishing. He said that 
one night the boat was floating down a small, narrow stream 
with giant trees meeting overhead so closely that they 
completely shut away even the starlight. Suddenly the 
boat turned and they entered a broad, shining river. The 
moon had just risen, that radiant Southern moon that 
illumines the darkest shadows, and turns everything to 
purest silver. There were primeval trees on each side of 
the bank which threw black shadows on the water, and the 
grey moss was of such luxuriant length that some of it 
dipped into the silvery ripples. It was a scene of marvellous 
beauty, while a hundred different perfumes — honeysuckle, 
night-blooming jessamine, wild roses, rain lilies, oleander, 
magnolias, pink mimosa and myriads of orange blossoms — 
were wafted from the shore. 

The gentleman drew a long breath and rejoiced that he 
was alive, and alive in that particular spot. The boatman, 



198 My Beloved South 



a Florida cracker, could neither read nor write; he knew 
nothing of the world nor in the world, but that he was a 
fisherman. My friend turned and asked him what river it 
was. 

"This," he answered, "is the Suwanee River." 

"What!" said my friend, "the Suwanee River, the river 
that is beloved of all the world and has been the inspira- 
tion of an unforgotten song?" 

"I ain't never heard of no song, but sho' 'nuff it 's the 
Suwanee River. " 

My friend said, "You have never heard the song with 
which Christine Nilsson, the greatest singer in the world, 
has brought tears to the eyes of thousands of people? You 
never heard, "Way Down Upon The Suwanee River?' " 

" No, I ain't never heard it, and I ain't never heard of it, " 
said the man. 

"Well, " said my friend, " you are not to go to your grave, 
my good man, without hearing it. I have never sung before 
in my Hfe, but I am going to sing it to you now. " 

And he raised his voice and sang, 

" 'Way down upon de S'wanee ribber, 

Far, far away, 
Dar's whar my heart is turnin' ebber, 

Dar's whar de old folks stay. 
All up and down de whole creation, 

Sadly I roam; 
Still longing for de old plantation, 

And for de old folks at home." 

"Well," said the man, with indifference. "I ain't never 
heard the song before and I don't care if I never hear it 
agin." 

I suggested to my friend that perhaps it was the way 
he sang it, but he said: " No, I was inspired and am sure I 
sang it quite beautifully; it is simply that a river, like a 
man, is not a prophet in his own country." 



The Suwanee River 199 

Strange to say, one of my most vivid memories of 
this haunting song is connected with Venice. Renee, 
a beautiful young friend, and I were floating along in a 
gondola on the Grand Canal. It was the middle of 
October, the air was delightfully fresh and crisp, and to 
add to our pleasure there was a harvest moon. Pre- 
sently we turned, leaving the other boats behind, and 
lazily faced the Lido, when immediately in front of us, 
gliding silently along, we noticed a gondola which 
suggested the introduction to an interesting romance. 
The boat was spick and span and beautiful. The 
gondolier, tall, handsome, with a red cap on his head, 
a silken sash around his waist and most graceful in all 
his movements, was leisurely handling the oar. A tall, 
lonely lady, partly sat and partly reclined on the black 
cushions. She was dressed all in black and enveloped 
in splendid furs from her neck to her feet. An enormous 
black hat, with drooping black feathers shaded her 
face so that we could only see a little of her white neck. 
A subtle perfume was wafted towards us, there was 
something magnetic and mysterious in her appearance, 
and I said to Renee, "She is our first chapter in a thrill- 
ing novel." Her gondola was a little in advance of 
ours, and we told our boatman to follow it. For some 
moments the two gondolas floated along in perfect 
silence, there was no one else in sight, and we were 
getting nearer the Lido. Suddenly the lady in the furs 
began to sing, 'Way Down Upon the Suwanee River, with 
such a voice, such feeling, such sweet tenderness and 
longing, that the tears rushed to my eyes and Renee 
seized me by the wrist and exclaimed, " Why, it 's Calve." 

When she finished the Suwanee River her voice 
became full of supplication and tenderness in Victor 
Hugo's Serenade, 



200 My Beloved South 

"Quand tu ris sur ta bouche I'amour s'^panouit, 
Et soudain le farouche soupgon s'evanouit. 
Ah ! le lire fidMe prouve un coeur sans detour. 
Ah, riez, riez, ma belle, riez, riez, toujours! 
Riez, riez, ma belle, riez toujours, riez." 

Then she flashed out her great song, the Habanara 
in Carmen, and Dixie followed with an adorable accent 
and all the fire of the South. How my heart thrilled 

at her intensity as she sang, 

"I wish I was in a land of cotton 
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom, 
Look away, look away, look away, down South in Dixie, " 

By this time we had arrived at the Lido, and although 
it was after ten o'clock and dark, the inhabitants 
recognised Calve's wonderful voice. Windows were 
thrown open, and calls of "Calve!" "Bravo!" "Calve!" 
* ' Calve ! " " Bravissimo ! ' ' came towards us with spon- 
taneous applause. As the boats turned round and 
faced Venice, she turned her noble head and said, 
"Madame, quand je suis triste, je chante toujours." 
And I answered, "Madame, your sorrow is our joy." 
Renee and I were full of wonder and talk imtil we 
arrived at our hotel, when it was our pleasure to 
find that Madame Calv6 had preceded us and was 
occupying a suite of apartments on our floor. My 
charming friend in Paris, Madame Runkle, a delightful 
musician herself, had asked me once or twice to meet 
Madame Calve, but it had been impossible, and when 
I introduced myself as Madame Runkle's friend, she 
said, "But I felt when you passed me in the boat, that 
it contained a sympathetic soul, that is why I spoke 
to you. Now we must be together every moment 
while we are in Venice." And we were. 



The Suwanee River 201 

Apparently she was there to make a pilgrimage of 
churches. She said she had a dear memory connected 
with that adorable city at the sea. At the moment she 
was very sad, so our being together meant that she 
and I and handsome Renee said our prayers, and wept 
together in every church in Venice. She wept for the 
sorrows of the present, I for the sorrows of the past, 
and dear, young Renee for the sorrows of the future, 

At night we went to the Lido and she gave us heavenly 
concerts all along the way, but the Suwanee River, and 
Dixie have never been sung with such beauty, such 
pathos, such hopeless longing or such fiery defiance as 
by this great artist. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WOMEN OF NEW ORLEANS 

THE "Crescent City" is no meaningless name, for 
the Mississippi in its constant movement has 
shaped the banks where New Orleans lies into a half- 
moon, and this Spanish, French, Creole city preserves 
to a very great extent its romantic atmosphere. Its 
distinctive charm and character remain French. There 
is no slightest reminder of the Pilgrim Fathers in its 
warmth and colour, but a suggestion of the mail-clad 
Spaniard who came in quest of glory, and the sanguine 
Frenchman, believing in visions of the seven fabled 
Cities of Gold. With the Spanish loiights came dark- 
eyed beauties with fan and mantilla, and from France 
ladies with powdered hair, high-heeled shoes, music, 
song, and dance. The English Cavalier came later, 
followed by the Colonial squire with his comfortable 
fortune and his slaves. But already, the gay and witty 
Latin gentleman, the man of adventure, had set his 
seal on Louisiana, and to-day, even in the midst of its 
advance and progress, the foreign spirit, the delightful 
atmosphere of the past lingers in the lap of the present. 
The Southern woman has always been distinguished 
for her spirit and self-possession. When New Orleans 
fell in 1862 and all was wild excitement and tumult, a 
very pretty lady with dark eyes, a white dress and rose- 
wrcathcd hat, was gracefully and coquettishly walking 

202 



The Women of New Orleans 203 

along the banquette, her sweet face quite placid and 
undismayed. 

"What, " she said, stopping to speak to a soldier, "is 
the latest order?" 

"They say," was the answer, "that General Butler 
is going to imprison women, if they do not behave 
themselves." 

Her lip curled in scorn. 

"How very gauche of him," she observed, "this 
timid General who fears a petticoat." 

"Take care, Madame," said the soldier, " I shall have 
to arrest you." 

"Really," said the lady, "that would not be very 
polite of you. I hope you will permit me to change my 
gown first. What would you like me to wear in prison ? ' ' 

" It would be an impertinence for me to advise you, " 
said the Northerner. "If I wasn't a soldier and a 
despised Yankee, I might add ' in any gown you would 
be gracious in my eyes. ' " 

" Perhaps, " said the lady, " I may give you an oppor- 
tunity of saying that to General Butler in my defence. 
Meanwhile, why are those boys and men screaming, 
yelling, and running?" 

"Madame," said the soldier, "a shell has burst over 
their heads or under their feet. " 

"Indeed," she said, "how very unpleasant for them! 
All revoir, monsieur; pour vos nouvelles mille r enter ct- 
mentsy And, turning, she adjusted her rose-coloured 
parasol, making one cheek pinker than the other, and 
holding up her dainty skirt, walked composedly and 
gracefully away. 

The soldier looked after her and said, "Game, by 
gad, game all through. " 

And the courage of the Southern woman has not 



204 My Beloved South 

grown less with her modern development and advance- 
ment, in which New Orleans compares most favourably 
with other cities of the Union. The Sophie Newcomb 
College for the higher education of women, founded by 
Mrs. Josephine Louise Newcomb as a memorial to her 
daughter, is a department of the Tulane University. 
The endowment is magnificent, making it one of the 
richest colleges in America, with a power for develop- 
ment possible in any direction. Mrs. Sneath, a lady 
originally from the West, who is greatly interested in 
the college, where her daughter received her education, 
was my cicerone. The buildings are beautifully located 
and there is every comfort and convenience within their 
ample space. The long kitchen, spotlessly clean and 
complete, with every modern cooking utensil, and a 
cordon bleu to give lectures and practical demonstra- 
tions, sends forth accomplished academic cooks. It 
seems to me that, with servants daily becoming more 
scarce, cooking is far more necessary for women than 
a course in the classics. From kitchen to garden was 
but a step. The walks and courts are ample grassy 
places, shaded by fine oaks with their long pendants of 
grey moss, and the girls when not in their classes lead a 
free, open-air, athletic life. 

Professor Elsworth Woodward showed us through 
the art department, where there were many original 
specimens of pottery. A large plaque of shaded Chinese 
blue with fine broad-leaved magnolia blossoms was 
worthy of any cabinet, and one piece of embroidery 
would certainly have aroused the enthusiasm and in- 
spired the gifted pen of Ruskin. It was a scarf, the 
groundwork of which was of an old gold natural silky 
flax, woven with a round thread in a diamond pattern, 
and either end was heavily embroidered in a conven- 



The Women of New Orleans 205 

tional design of cr^pe myrtle. The deep colour of the 
pink and the delicate form of the flower and foliage lend 
themselves to a most happy decoration. The lady who 
made it planted and grew the flax, gathered and spun 
the threads, wove them into linen, watched and waited 
for the flower to blossom, and while she breathed its 
faint perfume copied it with her needle. It is a moj[t 
exquisite and original piece of work. The landscapes, 
the glorious sunsets, a perfect feast of colour, the tropi- 
cal and semi-tropical foliage of Louisiana, are all 
inspirations to the artist, and that department of New- 
comb College under the enthusiastic direction of Pro- 
fessor Woodward will go far in its development. 

Another institution, the Christian Woman's Ex- 
change, is not endowed, but has nevertheless since 1881 
worked itself into an important success, and has bought 
its own buildings. Besides the business of exchange 
and embroidery it provides excellent lunches, both 
for ladies of fashion and the working women. New 
Orleans is, with every reason, proud of having erected 
the first statue in America to a woman, a humble Irish 
heroine who could neither read nor write, and whose 
only signature was a cross. But she made her sign in 
memory of Him Who said, "Suffer little children to 
come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven. " 

Margaret Haughery began life as a chamber-maid. 
She saved money, and, having been brought up on a 
farm, bought "a dun cow," sold the milk, made a begin- 
ning in this way, saved more money, and invested in a 
small bakery. The bread was excellent ; she was prompt 
in her delivery and prospered, until at last the little 
bakery developed into an immense money-making affair 
worked by steam, which yielded her a fortune. But 



2o6 My Beloved South 

from the moment she began to prosper she began to 
give. Her heart was not the heart of a mother whose 
love is centred only in her own children; she was one 
of those gifts from God, a universal mother to the 
lonely children in a hard world. All orphans, those 
poor and friendless little ones found in her a tender 
mother who worked early and late to provide for their 
needs and give them homes. She had good business 
capacity and succeeded in her various enterprises. She 
built St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum facing the Square. 
What joy it must have given her big heart to see the 
foundations laid! She helped to build St. Elizabeth's 
Industrial Home for Girls, and when she died the whole 
of her fortune was distributed among different charities 
for the children whom she loved so well. 

Although Margaret was a good Catholic, her intelH- 
gence was too large for sectarianism. Jews and Protes- 
tants were alike to her — they were little, they were 
helpless, they were babies, — she gave from her largesse 
to them all. Her will, leaving the whole of her savings 
to New Orleans orphanages and homes, was signed 
with her blessed mark, a cross, and now, like the beauti- 
ful Elizabeth, Austria's murdered Queen, who sits look- 
ing ever toward the towering mountains she loved so 
well, Margaret's face is turned toward the windows of 
her Orphanage, and the children stand at twilight 
look back and say, "There is dear Margaret. I wish 
I might have known her. " And the very marble seems 
to smile. The face is rugged and broad, but strong and 
kind and even distinguished, as every face must be that 
is illumined by a divine spirit from within. She is 
plainly dressed and wears a crochet shawl, her Sunday 
best, made by tiny fingers that, but for her, might have 
perished by the wayside. Keep guard, dear mother's 



The Women of New Orleans 207 

heart, over those helpless ones who are taught by the 
gentle nuns always to remember you in their innocent 
prayers. 

Another great work in New Orleans had its beginnings 
in the humble endeavour of a woman to help a fellow- 
creature. A circus had come to town, and, although 
the animals were well trained and there were clever 
riders and acrobats, the show had been a dead failure. 
The last day came, the circus was disbanded, and the 
pleasant smell of sawdust lingered in the air. The 
manager had said good-bye, and these strolling players 
were free to find what occupations they could. Fate 
sat smiling and turning over in her roguish, inventive 
mind what should result from this sad little failure. 
Then she clapped her hands and laughed, as she 
saw the largest night school in New Orleans arising 
from that soiled heap of tarnished, spangled, torn 
tarletan and cast-off finery. 

One of the performers, a young athlete of twenty- 
five, a fine specimen of manhood, had awakened to the 
fact that he wanted to do more than exhibit his muscles 
to the multitude. If he only had a little more education, 
he thought, he would try for a place in the Civil Service, 
settle down to steady occupation, and have a home of 
his own with regularity and certainty in his life. 

As he wandered about he saw a sign, "Day School 
for Girls." Why not here as well as anywhere? He 
walked up the path. He rang the bell, and a girl came 
to the door. She was delicate and crippled, but the self- 
sacrificing soul of the universal mother shone from her 
tender eyes. He humbly answered the look, and knew 
he had found succour. In short, broken sentences he 
told his simple little story — how he had run away from 
home as a boy, joined a circus, and had no education. 



2o8 My Beloved South 

"Could she, would she help him?" And she said 
impulsively, "Certainly I can and will help you. " 

Then she considered that all her days were occupied, 
her time being closely divided between teaching in her 
own seminary and the Normal School. The man said, 
"I have no money, not a penny; you will even have to 
give me a spelling-book. " And the girl answered, "I '11 
manage that, but I 'm poor too. I work all day teach- 
ing and have only my nights free. Can you come then ? ' ' 

Of course he could, and he was only the first of a 
steady stream that began to flow, ever broadening, 
through the wide-opened heavenly door. Her willing 
maternal hands began to lift the thick heavy veil of 
ignorance from the poor and needy and to let in, little 
by little, the light upon their dark benighted way. 

With her hard work all day, her crippled frame and 
over-active brain, sometimes the weak body was tired, 
but she worked on, undaunted in spirit, widening her 
scope of influence, until there was scarcely a comer in 
New Orleans where it was not felt, and where the name 
of Sophie Wright was not honoured and known. Volun- 
teers came to help in the noble work, and only two 
conditions were exacted of the pupils — they must 
be unable to attend day schools on account of being 
employed during the hours when they were open, and 
they must be too poor to pay for lessons. 

In the meantime her own school, the Home Institute, 
had prospered. Her pupils were well-to-do girls; she 
did her duty strictly by them, but her struggling, 
ignorant men and needy boys were her real children. 
They were creatures to whom she was necessary. She 
was their helpful, spiritual mother and teacher. She 
was giving them the means through education to earn 
tlieir bread and to better themselves. Jews, Gentiles, 



The Women of New Orleans 209 

Catholics and Protestants, the school was open to all. 
Grown men came to learn their A, B, C's, boys to im- 
prove their arithmetic, young men to learn mechanical 
drawing. And frail, crippled, with no rich patrons, 
Sophie Wright dared Fate. She fearlessly borrowed the 
money for her night school at eight per cent, compound 
in erest. She bought a larger house. Her guardian 
angel hovered ever near her. The day school prospered. 
She put all the money into books, maps, and articles 
necessary for the night school, and even with her con- 
stant outlay she reduced her debt one-half, until the 
yellow fever swept New Orleans. Then she turned her 
schoolhouse into a dispensary to which food, clothes, 
old linen and medicines were sent for distribution, and 
there she stayed except when on her tours through the 
afflicted city. 

When the frost came to kill the detestable stegomyia, 
the poisonous striped mosquito, and the fever was 
finally routed, Sophie Wright was face to face with 
ruin. Apparently neither her own school could go on, 
nor the night school, which was so dear to her heart. 
But Heaven again befriended her. A banker took over 
her mortgage and lent her ten thousand dollars, while 
two men interested in her school each promised two 
thousand dollars a year. Before the yellow fever came 
she had had three hundred pupils in her night school; 
before the end of the following year she had a thousand. 
And she not only had room for them, but clean books, 
stout desks, good maps, and forty teachers to assist her. 
There were European teachers who understood foreign 
languages to instruct the raw immigrants, and now girls 
were also admitted to certain departments. The course 
was enlarged to algebra, geometry, calculus, shorthand, 
mechanical drawing, bookkeeping and history. All 
14 



210 My Beloved South 

sorts and conditions of students came — clerks, machin- 
ists, typesetters, errand boys, post office boys, news- 
boys, bootblacks, and, finally, the "Spasm Band," a 
group of nameless waifs who sold papers by day and 
made night hideous with horrible noises. Stale Bread, 
the leader, had decided that Slowfoot, Pete, Warm- 
gravy, Zu-Zu, and Rum-Punch must be educated. They 
however, proved too wild even for Miss Sophie's strong 
will to subdue, and only Stale Bread remained until he 
could read, then, sadly enough, bHndness blotted out 
the newly acquired letters from his sight. But the night 
school prospered, although the debt of ten thousand 
dollars still remained, until a cheque for the amount, 
accompanied by a loving cup — a tribute from New 
Orleans to its Best Citizen a woman, — was presented to 
the founder of the night school, Sophie Wright. 

Sometimes there does seem to be, even on this earth, 
a law of compensation. It has come to Sophie Wright, 
who was born in 1866 at a time when the South was 
poorest. At the age of three, becoming a cripple from 
a fall, she spent six years strapped in a chair. It must 
have been a time of pure torture for this child to remain 
inactive, with her eager questioning mind, desiring to 
drink thirstily from the fount of knowledge. After- 
wards she completed her education in five years and 
opened a little school for girls. If she had been strong 
and well, she would in all probability have married, 
and whether happier for her or not, it certainly was 
better for the world, that she should have entered 
the arena of public life and have become the intel- 
lectual mother of so many neglected children. Slie 
gave one thousand, five hundred and eighty-one pupils 
to the city of New Orleans when she turned over her 
night school to its care, and, like all mothers who send 



The Women of New Orleans 211 

their children out into the world, she has her lonely 
moments. But honours are still showered upon her. 
The Girls' High School in New Orleans has just re- 
ceived the name of "The Sophie Wright School," and 
to all who know her she stands for the absolute triumph 
of Mind over Matter, the unanswerable evidence of a 
valiant soul conquering and surmounting the dragging 
flesh, and presenting an argument for the soul's immor- 
tality to the unbelieving. 

And though New Orleans can strike a serious note, it 
is a gay-hearted city. New York is too hurried even to 
smile, London on the sunniest day can only look com- 
placent and cheerful, but New Orleans can riotously 
laugh. During the carnival. Rex, its king, is the mer- 
riest, maddest, gayest of all living monarchs. Mardi 
Gras makes even the most melancholy citizen cheerful. 
The people love the carnival and never grow tired of 
it, for it means colour, light, music and movement. 
When I saw the wonderful frescoes of Goya in 
Madrid, they brought back memories of the rich 
Spanish colours — the orange and rose, purple and red, 
gold and green — of the New Orleans Carnival. 

What an experience it is for the young — a lifting of 
life's practical veil, a veritable peep into long-lost 
fairyland. The mystery that surrounds this merry 
function is more alluring still. Rex and his Broow 
flower, the blossom of laughter invented by himself — 
the very mention of him brings back merriment for- 
gotten, and that jolly king is, above all, the most gallant 
monarch in the world, for, even more than his kingdom, 
he loves chivalry and beauty and youth. To-night he 
gives the ever dear and always entrancing story of Cin- 
derella. The Prince, brave in velvet, satin, gold lace, 
silken hose and diamond garter, is surrounded by his 



212 My Beloved South 

gallant gentlemen-in-waiting. The selfish Mamma and 
Papa and the Ugly Sisters are arrayed in purple and 
fine linen. The Fairy Godmother, with her pointed hat, 
starched ruff, and quilted petticoat, leans on her magic 
staff, and a crowd of girls, like fluttering white doves, 
await the Prince and the slipper: 

"Ho, ho! Ho, ho! Ho, ho! 
But lowly and high are eager to try 
In attic and yard and cellar; 
Each maid in the land is longing to stand 
In the slippers of Cinderella. 
Ho, ho! Heel and toe! 
Nay, pretty maid, they are not for you. 
Your ankle's neat, and your stockings are sweet, 
But you have n't the foot for a fairy shoe. " 

There is only One for that enchanted slipper, and she, 
the youngest of them all, sits dreaming and unconscious 
of the high rank that in a moment kind Fate is about to 
bestow upon her. Among the ladies-in-waiting a charm- 
ing, eager, dainty maiden has a tender hope of the 
coming honour her sister may receive. She remembers 
now that months ago a gallant knight was extremely 
solicitous as to the size of her sister's shoe. Why? 
What reason had he? Her heart beats to suffocation. 
Her sister is from Virginia ; it is rare that an outside girl 
is chosen as the Queen of Beauty. New Orleans 
favours first her own fair daughters. But her sister is so 
lovely, so sweet, so exquisite — surely she is "Queen of 
all the rosebud garden of girls. " She looks lovingly at 
that fair proud head; perhaps ? 

The music sounds importantly; the Prince and his 
precious trophy, the little glass slipper covered in over- 
lapping, iridescent spangles, sparkling with the rain- 



The Women of New Orleans 213 

bow's every hue, has started on his quest. Anxiety 
brings the Fairy Godmother a Httle forward ; she looks 
first at one girl, then at another. No, not this pretty 
foot, nor this, nor this. The Ugly Sisters can only 
balance the fairy slipper upon one toe and fan their 
masks in vexation. Their rage makes the house rock 
with laughter. 

It is easy to laugh to-night. What a pretty ankle! 
But no, the little glass slipper goes farther afield. The 
anxious Godmother almost points her wand, but it 
would n't be fair, and it only trembles in her hand. 
Look! the Prince has paused; is it the beautiful face 
uplifted to his? No ! He kneels to a still more beautiful 
girl, and lifts an astonished little foot to his knee; his 
equerry bends over and delicately adjusts the folds of 
silk in modest place. The glass slipper fits; it is on, 
Cinderella is found ! 

"Ho, ho! Blow high, blow low! 
Come winter snow or come skies of blue ! 
You '11 tread upon air as through life you fare. 
If only you 're wearing a fairy shoe. " 

The music gives a splendid blare of triumph. For a 
moment the scene for Cinderella is blurred, the lights 
blend together in rose, gold, blue and silver. Then her 
own generous sister (not one of the plain ones) touches 
her lovingly on the shoulder, saying, "Steady, dear 
Princess, your crown awaits you." The Prince takes 
her hand, assists her to rise; gentlemen-in- waiting 
reverently bearing the insignia of her rank advance. 
In a second all the front of her simple white gown 
glitters with jewels, splendid diamonds encircle her 
throat and wrists, a crown of rubies and pearls is placed 
on her abundant hair, a court train of ermine and velvet 



214 My Beloved South 

is attached by ropes and tassels of glittering stones to 
her shoulders. She is no longer Cinderella, but a veri- 
table shimmering Princess of Fairyland. The future 
Consort, this gallant Cavalier and Prince by her side, 
has lightly kissed, with his beautiful pink, wax lips, her 
hand and gently placed it on his arm. 

The music plays a passionate throbbing waltz. Is 
she dancing, she wonders, or merely floating in air? 
Her cheeks are aflame, her eyes are glittering blue-steel 
stars, her lips are rose-leaves parted over pearls, all 
her emotional nature awakened, she is transcendently 
lovely. Hold high, Queen of Beauty, the Beaker of 
Life and drink; drain every drop of its intoxicating 
nectar to-night, for it is filled to the brim with mystery, 
music, laughter, light, gaiety, youth (you are barely 
eighteen) , rose-red beauty and awakening love. Perhaps 
your future betrothal and wifehood lie just behind that 
handsome impenetrable mask, for those gloved hands 
are wonderfully tender, guiding you through the mazes 
of the dance. And no matter, dear Cinderella, what 
sorrow the Fates hold in store for you, this is your 
supreme hour. You are Queen of the World, and yours 
is not the dull Kingdom of Inheritance, but the unlim- 
ited Kingdom of the Imagination. It is given you with 
lavish hand, for you are all the gods love — glad youth, 
sweet beauty, unconscious innocence. Dance, dance, 
until you are breathless, go home with a happy heart 
in the saffron dawn. And, without his mask, to-morrow 
the Prince will come to woo. 

Society in New Orleans is the most agreeable in 
America, for the reason that women do not entirely 
make it. Men are of it and in it. They belong to it by 
right of inheritance; they brought from the gay salons 



The Women of New Orleans 215 

of Paris two centuries ago an appreciation, an intimacy 
with women and an understanding of them, and they 
are to-day thoroughly at ease, courtly and happy in the 
society of ladies, and at the same time are manly men 
of affairs. The women of New Orleans are open- 
heartedly hospitable and kind. Mrs. Bruns, who mar- 
ried Dr. Henry Bruns, the son of Dr. J. Dickson Bruns 
(who until his death was an extremely popular doctor 
and more than an ordinary poet), is a unique woman, 
pretty, dainty, agreeable, full of enthusiasm, with both 
the door of her heart and her house ever on the latch. 
Someone said, "Katie Bruns's husband is going to give 
her a new carriage . " " Why , " said a woman who knows 
her well, "that won't be the least use to her. What 
Katie wants is a roomy omnibus to accommodate all her 
friends." 

Mrs. Logan, Mrs. Bruns's mother, was visiting her 
when I was at her house, and, discovering that she had 
nursed Judge Brawley during the War when he was 
wounded and lost an arm, I said, " This is not according 
to romance; you should have married him, dear Mrs. 
Logan. " She blushed, the blush of seventy which is as 
delicate as the beautiful blush of seventeen, and said, 
"I married his most intimate friend. The Judge was 
always talking to me of my husband. I think I loved 
General Logan even before I met him. " (Another case 
of Priscilla and Miles Standish!) "When my husband 
first saw me," she continued, "he was pleased to call 
me the 'pious flirt,' but finally apologised by falling 
in love with me, and we were married at the end of the 
War. " How delightful it is to be charming at seventy ! 

With no effort or trouble Mrs. Bruns entertains con- 
stantly. The moment I arrived in New Orleans I was 
bidden to come next morning to an eleven o'clock 



2i6 My Beloved South 

breakfast. Ruth McEnery Stuart, that true daughter 
of the South and talented dehneator of Southern life, 
was there. No one, not even Uncle Remus himself, has 
written more humorously and tenderly of the negro 
than she. And as a woman she is so entirely lovable, 
free from pettiness, and generous. 

Mrs. Bruns said, handing me a silver filagree basket, 
"Let me recommend these cakes to you." 

"No, thank you," I said. 

"Ruth McEnery Stuart made them especially for 
you, " she added. 

"Then," I said, "give me the whole basket and I 
will eat them all." 

It was so reminiscent of the old dear neighbourly 
South, to prepare a delicacy for a friend. Ruth Stuart is 
a wonderfully proficient cook and has invented a number 
of toothsome dishes. She recited her own poems in 
negro dialect that afternoon and they were so touching 
that when she finished no one was able to speak at first, 
least of all myself. Some day she is coming to England 
to conquer London and with her energy she will do it. 
When she invited me to a six o'clock breakfast party 
in the old French market I paused for a moment, before 
accepting it, but, of course, I went and the party was a 
great success. The coffee served there is unsurpassed 
in the world. Miss Stuart said an old Cajan priest 
declared it to be, "as pure as the angels, as strong as the 
devil, and as hot as hell, " combining the three qualities 
necessary to make coffee perfection. But William Beer, 
who with an indelible memory and wide reading, knows 
everything, said, "I fear your worthy priest is a 
plagiarist; Talleyrand said before him: 7e caje doit 
etre noir comme la mort, doux comme Vamour, chaud 
comme Venjer.' " We drank this superb coffee in thick 



The Women of New Orleans 217 

cups on a table covered with American cloth, but it 
was a better beverage than one can get in Dresden 
china cups in New York. 

The old market is wonderfully picturesque and a 
veritable feast of colour. The heaps of wild flowers, 
goldenrod, pitcher plant, coxcomb, purple cyclamen 
and wild orchids were still gleaming with the dew of the 
early morning. The fish stalls were shimmering mounds 
of silver, purple and blue, with strings of red snappers 
hanging above, seemingly carved out of pink coral. 
Grey trout, speckled with orange and scarlet, were 
flanked with enormous lobsters and greenish grey crabs. 
On the next stall were pheasants and wild turkeys, with 
their beautiful rich bronze, gold and green feathers. 
Golden plover, tiny reed birds, wild ducks with soft 
breasts of blue, grey and green made a shining mass of 
colour. And opposite them stood a table of richly dyed 
Indian baskets, filled with smooth, shining, satiny, 
strong beads, deep red, pale canary, orange, aqua 
marine, scarlet, and pearl colour with a sheen, like 
silver. "Now these you must have," said Ruth 
McEnery Stuart, touching the last, "they just match 
your gown." And I wore away a long string of dull 
silver-grey beads. 

We stopped at the cathedral, where there is a shrine 
to Our Lady of Lourdes, and as we walked along through 
the French quarter Mr. Beer pointed out the old house 
built for Napoleon when the Creoles formed a plan to 
rescue him from St. Helena, which, alas, was never 
carried out. On Bienville Street in an old pawn shop, 
my quick eye discovered the quaintest ornament in the 
window, a pendant composed of two little Egyptian 
figures, doubtless Cleopatra and Mark Antony, in blue, 
mauve, and white enamel. The man held in his hand 



2i8 My Beloved South 

an infinitesimally small fan, cooling the air for the 
Egyptian queen. And the little figures in profile were 
surrounded by old rose diamonds set in heavy sUver. 
I did want that peculiar jewel badly. We went in and 
asked the price; the dealer said it was fourteenth cen- 
tury work, and of course it was far beyond my purse. 
It filled with regret the generous heart of Ruth McEnery 
Stuart that she could not immediately present it to me, 
but later I forgot even Antony and Cleopatra, when we 
sat down to a dejeuner a la foiirchette in a splendid red 
and gold restaurant and ordered soft-shell crabs, hot 
rolls, black coffee and gumbo ! 

There is continual entertaining of an easy agreeable 
sort going on in New Orleans. Mrs. Eustace has a 
beautiful old house, with a splendid hall forty feet long 
and enormous rooms on either side, which accommodate 
any number of people comfortably. Mrs. George Pen- 
rose, a charming, pretty woman, is distinguished for her 
lunches and her black butler, who has the manners of a 
courtier. Mrs. Norvin Trent Harris, whose husband, a 
famous shot, can talk more entertainingly of birds and 
beasts than any sportsman I have ever met, keeps open 
house. And there are people in New Orleans of divers 
interests, musicians, poets, journalists, writers and 
ardent suffragists, of whom one. Miss Gordon, has done 
excellent work for the Cause, and a goodly sprinkling 
of delightful, soft-spoken Creoles, bankers, and cotton 
kings, — in fact, society is as varied as one would have 
it, and both the men and women have easy gracious 
manners. I regretted not meeting Grace King, an au- 
thority on the history of Louisiana and a most entertain- 
ing author. Cornelius Donovan, the engineer of the 
mouth of the Mississippi, who for years has been study- 
ing the vagaries of that uncertain stream, offered, if I 



The Women of New Orleans 219 

remained another week, to take me down the river. It 
is always changing, that wonderful stream, receding 
from the land to-day, and overflowing it to-morrow. 
The continual uncertainty of its movements, lends a 
constant interest to the vast immensity of water. I 
wanted to sail away, and see one of those marvellous 
Gulf days so poetically described by Lafcadio Hearn: 

It must have been to even such a sky that Xenophon 
lifted up his eyes of old when he vowed the Infinite Blue was 
God; — it was indeed under such a sky that De Soto named 
the vastest and grandest of Southern havens Espiritu Santo, 
— the Bay of the Holy Ghost. There is something unutter- 
able in this bright Gulf air that compels awe, something vital, 
something holy, something pantheistic; and reverentially 
the mind asks itself if what the eye beholds is not the 
Infinite Breath, the Divine Ghost, and the great Blue Soul 
of the Unknown. All, all is blue in the calm, — save the 
lowland under your feet, which you almost forget, since 
it seems only as a tiny green flake afloat in the liquid 
eternity of day. Then slowly, caressingly, irresistibly, the 
w tchery of the Infinite grows upon you; out of Time and 
Space you begin to dream with open eyes, — to dr ft into 
delicious oblivion of facts — to forget the past, the present, 
the substantial, to comprehend noth ng but the existence 
of that infinite Blue Ghost as something into which you 
would wish to melt utterly away forever. ..." 



CHAPTER XV 

OLD-WORLD NEW ORLEANS 

ALL my first memories of New Orleans are those of 
pure delight. When my father, on our way 
North to place me in a boarding-school, stopped a fort- 
night there, he was very busy attending to the famous 
Gaines case, and Mrs. Delgado offered to take care of 
the lonely little girl who was staying at the hotel. This 
lady belonged to the ancien regime, and was a very 
grande dame indeed. Her complexion was pale, she 
had dark hair, clearly cut aquiline features, very 
beautiful soft dark Creole eyes, and her hands and feet 
were exquisitely shaped and very small. In later years 
when she grew stout those tiny feet refused their ofhce 
and she ceased to walk, going everywhere in her car- 
riage. She dressed exquisitely, and her house was 
no less perfect. As the walls were very thick, and the 
floors covered with white matting, it was quite cool even 
in very warm weather, and throughout, the rooms were 
pervaded with an odour of eau de cologne, which Mrs. 
Delgado used with lavish profusion. 

It was in New Orleans that I had my first feast of 
the theatre, and it was, I am sure even now, an exceed- 
ingly good bill, for Joe Jefferson was starring in The 
Cricket on the Hearth. I already knew the story by 
heart, and everything in life faded away from me, except 
the sight of the people that I loved so well really living, 

220 



Old Memories and John 221 

speaking, and unfolding their romance before my ab- 
sorbed and intense vision. 

After the theatre I remember my dear father stopped 
at a little cafe on Canal Street and got us each a saucer 
of gumbo, a dish for which New Orleans is famous. 
Okra is a poetic and historic plant, as it grew in luxuri- 
ance along the banks of the Nile in 50 B.C. Caesar, 
Mark Antony, and Cleopatra ate of it, and it is not only 
a succulent vegetable, with its tender green pod, but it is 
worthy of being grown in the handsomest flower garden, 
for its lovely bell-shaped blossom of thick canary- 
coloured petals, ending where they join the stem in a 
deep rich shade of garnet. Gumbo is not, as many 
people suppose, a vegetable, but is a very thick soup 
made from a combination of young boiled chicken and 
okra, flavoured with a soupgon of garlic, and well 
seasoned with salt, pepper, and rich, fresh butter — an 
unforgettable delicacy. Thackeray found the name so 
amusing that he gave it to his negro in The Virginians. 

In one greenhouse in England this plant is grown, 
for Lord Ashburnham brought the seed back with him 
from Egypt, and at a time when I was ill, a little 
package arrived from Ashburnham Place, and when I 
opened it, lo and behold, to my surprise and grateful 
joy, there was a box of okra, the fresh green pods 
looking exactly as if they had been grown in Louisiana. 

In the French Quarter, which was not far from the 
house of Mrs. Delgado, a young negress kept a little 
stand, where she sold pecan pralines, and a tiny bouquet 
of single pinks went with each package of the nut 
candy. She had the most charming animated manners 
and an insinuating smile, but she only spoke a sort of 
patois French which I did not understand. Her dress 
was of dark blue cotton, sprinkled with little white dots, 



222 My Beloved South 

and she wore a white fichu, a string of red coral beads 
round her neck, and on her head a gay plaid handker- 
chief. 

Another interesting personality whom I never forgot 
was a tall man with soft brown eyes and brown whiskers. 
He wore the Confederate grey, and the little button of 
the Southern Cross of the Confederacy on the lapel of 
his coat. His shirt was spotlessly clean, with cufiEs 
which he turned back, and he played a triangle to 
attract customers. He carried a fascinating large blue 
box strapped across his broad shoulders, and when he 
lowered it there was a fine assortment of pretty wafer 
biscuits of many charming colours. The topmost of 
them had an icing of pale green, pink or mauve, while 
there were others without any icing at all, and they 
were all as crisp and toothsome as it was possible for 
wafers to be. But the little musical triangle, which he 
played as if a grasshopper sang faint far-away tunes, 
was much more seductive to me than the wafers. My 
black Mammy played the instrument, and the moment 
I heard the slight sweet notes I ran quickly down the 
stairs and was out in the street to make a selection from 
his wares, for the musician always gave his little cus- 
tomer "lagnieppe" — an extra wafer. Other children, 
too, loved the triangle, and the wafers and the vendor. I 
made one or two charming friends through his introduc- 
tion. One little girl who lived two streets beyond Mrs. 
Delgado had long, much admired, keenly-envied yellow 
curls, and before we parted she gave me a lock of her 
hair. 

When I went back to New Orleans I looked for my old 
friend. Now the brown whiskers would be white, I 
knew, and the erect shoulders carrying the box would 
be bent; but he was gone. I did find the negro woman 



Old Memories and John 223 

still selling pecan pralines, her head as white as cotton. 
She is of a great age, and has grown peevish and im- 
patient; her manners are not so good nor her smile so 
sweet as in years gone by. And since then she has 
learned some half-dozen words of English. 

I went to the Hotel De Soto on my arrival, to be near 
my life-long friend, the Major. He said, "I want to 
introduce you to the manager of the hotel. " And, 
bringing forward an exceedingly good-looking young 
man, he presented him as Mr. Alexander, who asked, 
"Were n't you Miss Betty Paschal, of Texas?" 

"Yes," I replied, "a good while ago I was Miss 
Betty Paschal, of Texas. " 

He said, "My name is John Alexander, and we come 
from the same town of Austin. " 

" Then, " I said, "you are a relation of Dr. Alexander, 
our old doctor who was with my mother when I was 
born." 

He said, "I am his grandson." 

" Not the little Johnnie Alexander, " I asked, "whom 
I remember as a child being shot in the wrist?" 

He held out his right hand. The wrist was scarred 
and considerably broader than the other, and I had seen 
that wound dressed. His father was a chemist in Aus- 
tin, and this baby, just learning to walk, was standing 
on the counter holding out his arms to his grandfather 
when a desperado walking down the street, jerked out 
his pistol and shot at a man standing in the back of the 
shop. The bullet missed the man but hit the baby. 
My aunt's house was nearest to the chemist's, he was 
brought in to have the wound dressed, and I remember 
running to the kitchen to get a jug of warm water for 
the doctor. The boy who shot him was not more than 
sixteen years old and this was the beginning of a career 



224 My Beloved South 

of crime. He subsequently took the lives of a number 
of men and at least three women, beginning with a 
young vaudeville actress, who fell in love with him, 
and after he had left her, tried to see him. He told her 
if she ever came near him again he would shoot her. 
One morning at a hotel in San Antonio she went to his 
bedroom door and opened it. He was lying in bed with 
a pistol by his side, which he picked up, aimed deliber- 
ately at her, and she fell dead, shot through the heart. 

Johnnie Alexander made my stay at the Hotel De 
Soto pleasant and comfortable. And my faith in 
the old-time negro was refreshed and revived, for the 
Major has, what before the war was called a "body 
servant. " John is quite black, with very kind, amiable, 
foxy eyes. He is extremely neat, has a good figure and, 
dressed in the Major's well cut cast-off clothes, he 
makes quite a fine appearance. He came to my room 
the morning after my arrival and said, " De Major sent 
me to say dat while you is here, I am to come two or 
three times a day to see if dar' s anything I kin do for 
you." 

I said, "I am sure there is, John." 

"De Major was talkin' dis mornin' des like he was 
gwine tcr give me to you, but he can't give me to nobody, 
he can only loan me. I told him he can loan me to you 
des as much as he likes, but de Major can't get rid ob 
me, " he said with a chuckle, "not ef he was to try. " 

"You must take good care of the Major," I replied, 
"because he is getting on, you know, in years. " 

" Don't say dat, for de Major is jes' as full of ambition 
as he kin be, " he said, "an' he suttenly is got a gallant 
heart. Even when he got de gout he puts on dem 
shiny shoes ob his (I suttenly does make de Major's 
shoes shine like a crow's wing), an' he won't even let me 



Old Memories and John 225 

tie 'em up for him, he is des as ambitious as he kin be, 
and not only is he got a gallant heart, but he is got a 
gallant young heart. " 

I said, "That is what I have heard, John," 

John chuckled loudly and said, "I tell you what it is, 
I am proud ob de Major. When I sends him out in 
de mornin' dere ain't no young blade in New Orleans 
what is any better turned out, den what de Major is. I 
don't let no speck nor spot stay on him, not a minute, 
I tell you what, when he is walkin' down de street 
even right young girls turns dere heads to look at de 
Major." 

I said, "John, I 'm afraid you are leading the Major 
into temptation." 

John gave a loud guffaw. 

"No'm, " he said, "I ain't don dat but sometimes 
he 's right hard to manage. " 

"John," I said, "I want a laundress, and I have six 
pairs of gloves to be cleaned." 

"Yassum," he said, "I knows des de best kind of a 
cleaner, and I know a laundress what can make your 
clothes look des like new. " 

When John returned with my clothes and gloves, I 
came to the conclusion that he himself was my laundress 
and also my glove cleaner. The gloves were enormously 
stretched, a good deal more soiled than when I sent 
them, and the charge for cleaning was forty cents a 
pair. ^ 

"John," I said, "isn't that an awful price for 
gloves?" 

He replied, "Yassum, 'deed it is, and I jes' talked 

wid dat woman wid such eloquence dat she 's gone out 

ob bisniss, an' I 'spect she 's gone clean away from New 

Orleens. I never did give any woman such a dressin* 

15 



226 My Beloved South 

down an' a trouncin' wid my tongue as I give dis here 
same woman." 

"Look at my clothes," I said, "they are very badly 
done. I heard that laundresses in New Orleans were so 
good." 

"Yassum," he said, "dey is good, but dis woman 
done los' her husband. He died des as she was begin- 
ning to wash your close an' de poor creature's in sich 
grief I could n't bear to scol' her so I jes' brought 'em 
along. I 'spect dem close was sprinkled wid tears." 

I paid for the clothes and I paid for the tears, but 
I made up my mind that John had better confine his 
offices to the Major. I could not, however, get rid of 
his assiduous attentions. And one morning he told me, 
with a great look of expectation in his eyes, that he was 
going to be married in four days. I knew what the look 
meant quite well — a wedding present. "Why, John," 
I said, "I thought you were a confirmed old bachelor." 

"So I is. Miss Betty," he said (he had dropped the 
Madam and got to an affectionate "Miss Betty"), "but 
de Major don't like my runnin' roun', and you know a 
man is des 'bleeged to run 'roimd, lessen he 's married. 
De Major is one of dese here moral men, he say men 
oughter to stay home in de evenin's, so I 'm gwine to git 
a home to stay in. I don't want to git married, I 'm 
des marryin' to please de Major. An' hits one of dese 
here sensible kind ob marriages too. De lady what I am 
gwine ter marry is 'bout de bes' cook in New Orleens, 
she can wash wid any ob dese here French women, 
and she 's des as neat as a pin 'bout de house ; but I 
must be bringing down dat pineapple what I got fur 
you." 

When John brought down the pineapple it was stale 
and over-ripe. I don't think he had been to market for 



Old Memories and John 22^ 

it, but had bought it from a huckster on the street for 
three cents. " 

"John," I said, "isn't this pineapple rather a poor 
one for a good marketer to buy?" 

He said, "Yassum, Miss Betty, dat 's de Major's 
fault. I done tole him to let me go to market an' he 
done sent me to one ob dese fruit shops kept by a 
Italian, an' dere ain't no 'pendence in de roun' world 
to be put in dese here furriners. You can't trust 'em 
for a single minute. De pineapple what I said I 'd take 
was all right, but dis here man done change it for 
another, when he put it in de bag. I thought you was 
in a hurry, so I did n't take it back, I des cut it up. " 

And never once did he supply me with fresh fruit. 
The Major confided to me that his only grievance 
against John was his extraordinarily bad memory when 
it came to accounts, his laxity in putting down on paper 
any money that he spent and his never bringing back a 
receipted bill. But there was never anything in the 
world like the diplomatic excuse which John always had 
ready. I gave him two dollars as a wedding present, 
but the Major has since written to tell me of the post- 
ponement of the marriage. All the employees in the 
Major's office had given him sums of money and by the 
time he is again to be married a second contribution 
will be levied. Never have I seen anyone who under- 
stood the art of flattery better than John. Every 
morning he told me I was much younger and better 
looking than the day before; that his happiness would 
be complete if I should decide to live in New Orleans; 
that the climate agreed with me, that everybody in the 
hotel loved me, that the Major's spirits and appetite 
had improved since I came, in fact every conceivable 
amiable lie possible of invention he heaped upon me. 



228 My Beloved South 

He supplied me with withered flowers and stale fruit. 
He kept me waiting for my clean clothes and gloves; 
he cheated me out of my change and was hours in doing 
any small errand. Nevertheless, I had a sort of easy- 
going liking for him; he was so very transparent, so 
really without guile. 

One afternoon I was sitting in the hotel waiting for 
him to return from the post-office when I noticed com- 
ing down the corridor a clean-shaven, rather stout, 
kindly looking man carrying in one hand a lily and in 
the other an exquisite rose. He stopped, saying, " Lady, 
may I present this flower to you?" and handed me the 
rich red rose. 

"Perhaps you do not know this variety," he said; 
"it is a difficult one to find, for they are going out of 
fashion. It is the Napoleon rose and was at one time a 
great favourite in New Orleans, where as you know, 
Napoleon's memory is still warmly cherished. This 
is the rose which he asked to have sent to St. Helena 
from France, and he planted it there with his own hands. 
See what a marvellous flower it is; observe the tender- 
ness of the stem; look at the perfect petals, — they seem 
to be cut out of ruby velvet, — and note how this single 
blossom perfumes all the air. It is a pity that more 
attention is not given to these roses, because they grow 
rarer every year. I present this to you in memory of 
Napoleon." 

I said, "I accept it from you and from him. You 
seem to be fond of flowers." 

"Yes," he said, "flowers are my friends. I go to 
a flower shop every morning to regale my soul and to 
provide myself with a Httle perfumed friendship for the 
day. If I had to do without my cup of coffee or without 
my rose, I would give up my coffee. " 



Old Memories and John 229 

And he made me a low bow and went away, and 
although I saw him almost every day in the hotel and 
he looked kind and friendly, we did not have any 
further conversation. But I shall not forget him, for 
what better introduction can any man have than a 
Napoleon rose? 

How eager I was to explore that fascinating city 
again. The very morning after my arrival found me at 
nine o'clock in one of the public automobiles, making a 
hurried tour to revive my memory of the old French 
Quarter and see the many changes in the more modern 
city. The car was full of tourists and the guide shouted 
with a strong voice through a megaphone. Nothing of 
his intonation remains in my memory except his reply 
to a tourist who asked, as we entered one of the beauti- 
ful cemeteries, what the four figures kneeling at the 
corners at the base of a tall marble shaft represented. 
He said the monument was erected by Mr. Moriarity, 
and that the four figures represented Faith, Hope, and 
Charity, and Mrs. Moriarity. 

A large proportion of the tourists were Northern 
people and we stopped in front of a very large old- 
fashioned house with galleries on every side. The 
house was white, with heavy green shades such as were 
used in the old Creole quarters; there was a grove of 
orange trees leading to the gate, groups of oleander and 
tall magnolias in splendid leaf and blossom in a pleasant 
garden surrounding it. An old grey-haired Mammy, 
hemming a little white frock, sat with her foot on the 
wheel of a perambulator taking care of a sleeping baby, 
while five or six children were tumbling and playing 
about together. It was a pretty scene of peace and 
Southern life. 

The guide said: " Ladies and gentlemen, we stop here, 



230 My Beloved South 

not to see the house, although it is a fine one, but 
because four generations Hve happily in it, — a great- 
grandmother who was married when she was fifteen, 
two grandmothers and a mother, whose children are 
playing in the garden. I have heard," he said, "that 
some folks don't get along with their families, but 
here in the South we are learned to look after the old 
people, and we expect to do it as long as we live, for 
they are our kin. " 

Just then a very old lady with perfectly white hair 
came down the steps leaning on the arm of a tall, 
charming looking octoroon maid. One of the children 
ran to take her other hand, saying, "Gran, Gran, let 
me help you. " So I suppose this was the great-grand- 
mother, and it was the pleasantest and the most refresh- 
ing picture that I saw in New Orleans. 

In the park the old landmarks are the same. The 
great live-oaks with their wealth of Spanish moss, under 
whose branches duels were fought, remain unchanged, 
and on many tombs in the old French cemetery of 
St. Louis will be found, "Mort sur le Champ d'Hon- 
neur," or " Victime de I'honneur," in memory of the gay 
cavaliers who met their death under these noble trees. 
The French Quarter has perhaps grown a Httle shabbier. 
The old houses are still made attractive by the inner 
court and quaintly shaped flower beds, with a clipped 
centrepiece of spitti-sporum, that deHghtfully odorous 
shrub of the South, and borders of sweet violets, jon- 
quils, Hlies, amaryllis, fragrant myrtle and cape jessa- 
mine. These old-fashioned blooms still perfumed the 
narrow street with their sweetness. I was looking so 
longingly at one of these gardens that a pretty Creole 
girl gave me a little nosegay. The old placards, ' ' Cham- 
bres Garnies," dangled from the balconies, half -hidden 



The Vieux Carre and Antique Shops 231 

by flowering vines, and everywhere the French language 
is heard or the EngHsh tongue spoken with the prettiest 
imaginable French- Creole accent. 

Antique shops in the Vieux Carre are perilously 
enticing. Every memory of my childhood seems to be 
embodied in these shabby old shops with their varied 
contents, carved rosewood furniture covered with worn 
French brocade; little work-tables with flaps letting 
down on either side and two drawers with glass knobs 
that were in every Southern lady's bedroom ; little, low 
four-legged rosewood footstools, covered with moth- 
eaten embroidery; old square pianos, tall heavy can- 
dlesticks in sets of four which were used on every 
supper-table, and splendid candelabra of ormolu with 
their tinkling weight of triangular crystals. In the 
porches of the South, tall glass cylinders used to encircle 
candles. A pair of these proved irresistible; I bought 
them and shipped them to England. Then there were 
the old-fashioned French coloured steel engravings — I 
remember a set of these called "Le Manteau, " in my 
mother's bedroom. In the first, a tall, slender, exquisite 
gentleman in a cavalry uniform, with little side-whiskers, 
splendid cap and a long full cloak, was wooing a young 
lady in a white Swiss muslin hobble skirt, pink sash, 
and a bunch of curls on either side of her round, rather 
foolish face. In the next picture she is eloping from a 
white chateau in a pink muslin gown, and "Le Man- 
teau" envelops her form, as well as the soldier's. In 
the third picture she is sitting with a curly-headed child 
resting against her knee, dressed in widow's weeds, still 
wearing " Le Manteau" which was apparently her 
husband's only legacy. In the last picture, with a long 
black veil floating over " Le Manteau" and holding the 
chubby infant by the hand, she is walking up the steps 



232 My Beloved South 

of the chateau, where I certainly hope she found refuge 
and forgiveness. I always thought the story incom- 
plete. The last one should have had "Le Manteau" 
hanging up in the hall, the lady free from it at last, she 
in her father's arms, and the grandmother embracing 
the small boy. 

The window of one of those shabby shops in Royal 
Street displayed an artfully seductive placard over two 
cups and saucers, two plates, and a little jardiniere of 
exquisite and original design. The china was trans- 
parent and very white, with lines of black, narrower 
at the base than at the top, running vertically on all the 
pieces, and softened on either side by a lace-like tracery 
in gold that converged in a little disc of gold lace in the 
centre. Underneath was written in a fine, old-fashioned 
French hand, "Faience de Diane de Poitiers," and in 
parentheses, ("La Duchesse de Valentinois"), so the 
vendor knew something of history. I went into the shop 
to ask the price, which I knew beforehand would be far 
beyond my purse, and the distinguished-looking, white- 
haired little Creole lady said, " It is dear; but, Madame, 
it is veritable, it bears the colours of the Duchesse de 
Valentinois, who never left off mourning for her 
husband. Monsieur de Breze. " 

"Yes, Henri II," I said, "wore her colours, black 
and white, at the tournament when he was fatally 
wounded. " 

She smiled and said, "Then Madame is a student of 
French history?" 

"No," I said, "but I know something of it from a 
dear Irish friend, Mrs. Emily Crawford, who has lived 
in France forty years. She gave me a little lecture on 
famous Frenchwomen one day when we walked in the 
garden of the Tuileries. ' It was through her buoyant 



The Vieux Carre and Antique Shops 233 

health, ' she said, ' that Diane de Poitiers, although 
nineteen years older, kept her dominion for so many 
years over Henri II, She was a woman far in advance 
of her times. She bathed daily in tepid water when 
other women scarcely bathed at all ; she was an intrepid 
horsewoman, she invented athletic exercises, she drank 
cold water, and she ate simple food. She was a cheerful 
philosopher; and above all things men value cheerful- 
ness — it makes them comfortable. The infidelities of her 
royal lover disturbed her but little. She knew her power, 
and felt sure of his return, and although Catherine de' 
Medici, his queen, bore him ten children and was an 
astute statesman, she never dislodged Diane.'" 

"Yes," said the Creole lady, "Diane was a great 
woman. And the faience, Madame?" 

I took out a little book and wrote down her name 
and address. 

" Madame," I said, " if I am ever rich these relics shall 
be mine. I cannot afford to buy them just now, but I 
can have visions. These addresses are all those of my 
future treasures. This is a quaint little shop in the 
square of St. Mark's in Venice, where there is a Doge's 
bottle of gold and crystal; and here, at The Hague, a 
small squat clock of old silver, with a wreath of pink 
enamelled roses, is waiting for me. But at the present 
moment I would forfeit all of my dreams for the 
faience of Diane de Poitiers." 

There was a little, old, inexpensive oil portrait of the 
Due de Choiseul in a battered frame which she offered 
me as a bargain, for the history of Louisiana does not 
make the picture easy of sale. Louis XV saved him, 
but not New Orleans. 

"You will be damned, Choiseul," said Louis to his 
Prime Minister. 



234 My Beloved South 

"And you, sire?" 

"I? Oh, I am different, I am the Anointed of God. " 
And all France laughed and applauded, for wit is 
allowed there; but if one of England's kings said lightly- 
that he was the Anointed of God, the nation would be 
shocked, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the 
humblest subject. No public jokes are allowed in 
England or in America; the door of the castle or the 
cottage in these countries must be closed on wit. 

The amiable little lady bade me a smiling farewell, 
saying, "Adieu, Madame, bonne chance, et revenez le 
plus tot possible, avec la bouteille du Doge et la pendule 
de la Hollande pour la faience de Diane." 



CHAPTER XVI 

A RUSSIAN ROMEO AND JULIET 

He that is stricken blind cannot forget 
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost. 
Show me a mistress that is passing fair, 
What doth her beauty serve but as a note 
Where I may read, who pass'd that passing fair? 
Farewell; thou canst not teach me to forget. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

TH E history of New Orleans is a series of the most 
romantic and deHghtful episodes, connecting this 
fascinating city with the great romances of the world. 
Where can a more beautiful story be found than that 
of this latter-day Romeo and Juliet, who lived in 17 12? 

The Duke of Brunswick, Wolfenhuttel, was the 
father of a daughter called Charlotte. She was beauti- 
ful, tall and slight, with a regal crown of fair hair. She 
sang charmingly, was very accomplished, possessed 
a most tender, sympathetic nature, perfect health, 
high spirits, and at the same time she was docile and 
obedient. Naturally every one in the little duchy 
loved her. Attached to her father's court was a hand- 
some young Frenchman, the Chevalier d'Aubant, a man 
of a passionate yet faithful temperament — oh, rare 
combination ! 

It had not been necessary for these two exquisitely 
attuned human beings to speak of love; they felt it, it 
surrounded them, it was in the air and in the flowers, 

235 



236 My Beloved South 

and it bloomed with exotic radiance in their two young 
hearts. D'Aubant would have been an acceptable 
suitor in her father's eyes, for he was not only a man of 
family but he possessed a small fortune, and life was 
charming, quiet, dignified, and quite happy in this 
pretty Lilliputian court. But unfortunately for these 
devoted lovers an unexpected traveller appeared in 
Brunswick in the person of Alexis, the eldest son of 
Peter the Great, the heir apparent to the crown, who 
had been a great disappointment to his father. 

He was unbelievably stupid, cruel, and wicked. 
There was no vice in which he had not steeped himself 
— the palace and the hovel were alike to him. His 
father was in despair that such a being was to become 
the future ruler of the millions of people whom he had 
made every effort to enlighten and elevate, and as a 
last resource he sent Alexis on a long journey. 

While he was the guest of the Duke of Brunswick 
he fell in love with the charming, aristocratic young 
Princess Charlotte. Alexis wrote home to the Czar, 
and Peter received the news with joy. He had heard 
of the beauty, the virtue, the charm of Charlotte, and a 
hope sprang up in his heart that her noble character 
and example might have an influence upon his im- 
possible son. A message was conveyed at once to the 
Duke of Brunswick to demand his daughter's hand in 
marriage. 

Being a tender father, his heart was filled with 
sorrow for the future of his sensitive, carefully-reared 
daughter, but he did not dare to refuse, knowing that 
Peter the Great was of all things an unrelenting despot. 

It was only necessary to look into the cowardly eyes 
of Alexis to know his brutal character, and there were 
no rejoicings at the wedding. It was a most pathetic 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 237 

affair, and Charlotte, who had done her father's bidding 
and sacrificed herself that the duchy and the power of 
the Duke of Brunswick might remain unimpaired, 
clung to her father like a drowning woman, and had to 
be lifted from his arms into the carriage. 

Six powerful, wild Mazeppa horses were waiting to 
speed the bride and bridegroom to Russia to the great 
Court of St. Petersburg, and a rough escort of Cossacks 
surrounded the travelling coach. There was one who 
rode like mad, always ahead of the others, with his 
thick, shaggy Tartar cloak pulled down close over his 
head and ears. Occasionally he turned and came back 
to the carriage door, and whenever he did so Charlotte 
leaned forward, as though to touch his friendly cloak. 
This Cossack was, of course, d'Aubant, who was 
following her into Russia with a broken heart. 

After the betrothal of Charlotte was announced, he 
had scarcely spoken and never smiled, but he made 
that rough journey possible for her, for whenever the 
horses were unruly his hand was the first to restrain 
them, and he was always rendering the Princess some 
slight service. Once she slipped in getting out of the 
carriage. Blessed moment ! for one brief second he held 
her lightly in his arms. When he put her down this 
hooded Cossack swayed like a tree in the forest that is 
swept by a mighty tornado. 

On the entrance of the bridal pair to St. Petersburg 
the bells rang out one hundred chimes, the people 
shouted until their throats were hoarse, and a dozen 
military bands gave forth inspiring music to welcome 
the beautiful bride of Alexis to the imperial city. The 
faithful Cossack rode ahead and stood by the door with 
humble mien as the tall, beautiful woman passed by 
him. That night her faithful German maid carried 



238 My Beloved South 

him a letter; the words were brief, but there was some 
comfort in them. She wrote: 

D'Aubant: 

Your disgmse was not one to me. It could not deceive 
my heart. Now that I am the wife of another know for the 
first time my long-kept secret — I love you. Such a confes- 
sion is a declaration that we must never meet again. 

The mercy of God be upon us both. 

Charlotte. 

This letter contained another paper. It was a pass- 
port signed by the Emperor, and it gave to the Cheva- 
lier d'Aubant the right to leave the empire at his own 
convenience. At dawn the following day d'Aubant was 
far beyond St. Petersburg, and eventually he arrived 
in Paris. 

But he was always sad and restless, and in 171 8 he 
was appointed Captain in the colonial troops that were 
starting for Louisiana. On his arrival there he was 
stationed in New Orleans, and although a favourite 
with men and officers, for his manner was exquisitely 
gentle and polite and his face expressed resignation, 
yet there was always a sorrowful look in his eyes and 
he evidently preferred solitude to the gaiest and most 
brilliant company. 

Near New Orleans was a small village of friendly 
Indians, and a road called the "Bayou Road" ran 
through a primeval forest, connecting the Httle village 
with the French settlement. D'Aubant became a 
favourite with the Indians, and they gave him permis- 
sion to build a rural hut on the outskirts of their village. 
It was fashioned of fragrant cedar logs with a thatched 
palmetto roof, and was furnished with rustic chairs and 
tables. Above the mantelpiece of one room was a re- 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 239 

markable picture in a heavy carved gilt frame — a full- 
length portrait of a wonderfully beautiful girl. She 
was dressed in flowing white and the face was that of 
an innocent virgin ; a great coil of fair hair crowned her 
proud head, and her deep blue eyes, filled with melan- 
choly, gazed upon a pointed crown which, instead of 
lying on a cushion, rested crushingly upon a human 
heart. 

This picture must have been painted from memory 
by d'Aubant, who was something of an artist, for the 
likeness to the Princess Charlotte was faithful and 
living, as if a man had wielded the paint-brush with his 
soul. Whenever he could be spared from his military- 
duties, all his time was spent in adoring this lifelike 
portrait, which was tended like a shrine. Great pots of 
mimosa and magnolia and crepe myrtle stood before 
it, roses and lilies filled rude but beautifully shaped 
vases of clay made by the Indians; and the little room 
was fragrant with cedar and aromatic with the odours 
of the South, while a small lamp burned perfumed oil 
below the crown and the heart, and cast a soft light on 
the face of d'Aubant's great lady. 

Through all the long years he had not communicated 
with her except to send her a magnolia leaf with ' ' May 
1 6th" written upon it — a date which neither of them 
could forget, because she had danced with him on that 
day for the first time at the ball given on her birthday 
in the far-off duchy of Brunswick; and there were two 
names marked upon the leaf — "D'Aubant" and "New 
Orleans." 

Charlotte's future destiny was settled by that mag- 
nolia leaf. Her finer nature, her exquisite refinement, 
her virtue, her religion had only served to exasperate 
and annoy Alexis. He could not change her, he could 



240 My Beloved South 

not lower her pure morality, and finally his irritation 
developed into brutality, for the constant injustice 
of a cruel man towards a delicate woman inevitably 
ends in hatred. 

Thinking of the most refined insult which he could 
put upon her, Alexis conceived the idea of compelling 
Charlotte to receive at court a kitchen wench, with 
whom he had an open liaison, — a broad-faced, broad- 
hipped person, who could neither read nor write, of low 
intellect and coarse instincts which matched his own. 
He knew, of course, that Charlotte would decline to re- 
ceive her, as she did with firmness, spirit, and dignity. 
As the last words of refusal left her pure lips he rushed 
at her with the infuriated cry of a wild animal, his 
mouth foaming with rage. He called her all the names 
of his loathsome vocabulary. He tore her fair hair, and 
doubling up his great fists knocked her down, beating 
her until she was senseless. And in all that court 
neither nobleman nor gentlewoman dared to interfere, 
for Alexis was their despotic and merciless master. It 
was, however, the beginning of the end for him. He 
was losing control of himself, and not many years after- 
wards Peter the Great, justified in his own eyes and 
acting, as he said, for the good of Russia, with his own 
hands put his inhuman son to death. 

During the maniacal attack on Princess Charlotte, 
the Countess of Konigsmark had made a step towards 
her friend as if to rescue her, for she alone had the 
complete confidence of the Princess, and served her 
with loyalty and a great love. At this time in St. 
Petersburg there was a wonderful apothecary, who had 
developed his talents under the encouragement of 
Peter the Great until it was said that he could almost 
raise the dead. Certainly, like Friar Laurence, he could 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 241 

successfully put the living into a deathlike sleep, and 
Charlotte, with the aid of her friend the Countess of 
Konigsmark, obtained from him a little phial. The 
Princess had borne all that she could bear and yet live ; 
if death came she would welcome it. And she had taken 
the desperate resolve when she awoke to join d'Aubant 
in that far-away land, kind alike to aristocrat and to 
numbered convict. 

The Countess of Konigsmark brought the draught, 
and, with a prayer to God for mercy, the Princess 
Charlotte eagerly drank it. Then she felt 

A cold and drowsy humour ; for no pulse 

Shall keep his native progress, but surcease; 

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st; 

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade 

To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall, 

Like death, when he shuts up the day of life. 

Each part, deprived of supple government. 

Shall stiff, and stark, and cold appear, like death; 

And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death 

Thou shalt continue two and forty hours. 

And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. 

The funeral of Charlotte was even more magnificent 
than the sumptuous fete of welcome to St. Petersburg. 
There was a great gilded hearse with waving sable 
plumes, a sound of muffled drums, an impressive 
cathedral service of barbaric music and clouds of in- 
cense, the intoning of many gorgeously-robed priests, 
and then the quiet of the vault. Through it all Char- 
lotte slept her deathlike sleep, with her hands crossed 
and cold in their waxlike rigidity. 

The face of the Countess of Konigsmark was white 
and fixed with anxiety. She had much to do; permis- 
16 



242 My Beloved South 

sion had been granted her to sit by the side of her 
beloved friend, and there in the chill vault she waited 
for the blue lips to change to a soft rose, for the stiffened 
eyelids to relax to mobility, for the proud eyes to open 
once more upon this tragic world. 

When Charlotte woke she was weak and needed wine 
and food, but Hope warmed her heart to life and a 
sense of elation gave her palsied limbs strength. She 
belonged to herself now, and to no other. The Princess 
Charlotte was dead. 

All Europe rang with the news, but a woman, young, 
beautiful, nameless and free, lived; a woman carrying 
deathless fidelity in her heart, a woman whose soul 
whispered to another soul thousands of leagues away 
of a winged love and a swift meeting. 

Simply attired, with a few jewels and a well-filled 
purse, Charlotte issued from the tomb, nameless, 
unknown, but warm, living, and happy. In 1721 two 
hundred immigrants arrived in New Orleans, among 
them a beautiful, highbred woman, with an imperial 
crown of fair hair. She had never spoken her name, and, 
though her manners were gentle and unassuming, she 
unconsciously commanded those about her, and they, 
as unconsciously recognising her as one above them, 
obeyed. Instinctively they felt her to be a creature 
singled out by the gods for the fulfilment of an extra- 
ordinary destiny. 

On arriving at New Orleans, she said she had a letter 
to the Chevalier d'Aubant, and she was told he was 
in his rural retreat near the settlement, but that it 
would not be necessary for her to go so far, as a dozen 
willing knights offered to carry him her message. She, 
however, declined their offers, asking only for a humble 
guide, and a black-eyed, silent Indian led her to the forest. 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 243 

It was a tender, tranquil summer evening with the 
long rays of a declining sun slanting through the leaves. 
One ray penetrated a wide-open door and illumined a 
picture of herself. D'Aubant, in a reverential atti- 
tude, was gazing upon it as though it were the image of 
a saint, when a shadow darkened the doorway, and 
he looked up. A woman stood before him with out- 
stretched hands, tear-filled eyes, and soft quivering lips, 
a woman all light and gladness, with the purified love 
and longing of many years of weary waiting in her 
sweet eyes. 

He started towards her and then stopped. 

"Oh, God!" he cried, "if you are a vision, stay with 
me; if a woman, comfort my starving heart!" 

She said in low, tremulous tones, "I am a woman — 
your woman, now and for all eternity. " 

In a moment he held her in a heavenly embrace. 
Then came the miraculous explanation of her presence 
there, and next day in the golden dawn of early morn- 
ing, in a rude little church, they were married, and the 
bride softly whispered her one name, "Charlotte." 

But there are no secrets in the whole of the universe. 
People personally concerned in a secret fondly imagine 
they are hiding the dread truth, but even at that 
moment the world discusses it. 

Many times it is to the interest of all concerned 
to guard a secret, but the wind whispers it to the trees, 
the trees to the flowers; the flowers are gathered and 
breathe it to the house. And it is possible for one 
mind without words to communicate with another. 
Charlotte and the Chevalier d'Aubant certainly re- 
mained silent. Perhaps the Countess of Konigsmark 
told the secret to her lover, and during a supper with 
wine flowing like water, he whispered it to a friend ; or 



244 My Beloved South 

it might have been revealed in another way. There 
are undoubtedly people in the word gifted with second 
sight. Perchance some sorceress banished from France 
gazed on Charlotte with prescient eye and divined her 
history. At any rate, rumours soon began to be 
whispered in the colony about this wonderful couple. 
They were regarded with so much furtive interest that 
d'Aubant felt they would be safer among a multitude, 
and very quietly they left New Orleans for Paris. But 
in the garden of the Tuileries Marshal Saxe recognised 
Charlotte. The Chevalier felt there was danger. By 
this time he had been promoted and was Major of his 
regiment, and at his request he was transferred to the 
island of Bourbon. Charlotte accompanied him, and 
they resided there for a long period. In 1754, after 
more than thirty years of perfect married happiness, 
d'Aubant died, leaving Charlotte with one daughter. 
She survived him nearly twenty years, and in the end 
died in great poverty. 

There are historians who doubt this story, but it has 
always been credited in Louisiana, and Gayarre pre- 
sents it most graphically in his delightful history of the 
land he loved so well. 

The swamp-land all around New Orleans is rapidly 
being reclaimed. Pretty, quaint little houses and 
bungalows, brilliantly painted, are being built, and 
the outskirts of the town ofifer a gay and exotic 
appearance. One house with a roof of orange colour, 
was painted white, with cobalt blue shutters and a 
wide blue gallery. It was a daring combination, but 
under the intense sapphire sky and amid the surround- 
ing growth of tropical green it was not unpleasing, 
or, to use the favourite word of smart London, it was 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 245 

"amusing." The road to Lake Pontchartrain, where 
there is a club and a tea house and boats of divers kinds 
for hire, is now Hned with motors, and it presents a 
livelier aspect than the long stretch of lonely sands 
where, when Louisiana belonged to France, Des Grieux 
and beautiful Manon Lescaut, the immortal heroine 
whether of reality or fiction, journeyed to the death of 
one and the everlasting grief of the other. 

All the world knows that touching story, the subject 
of drama and opera, the inspiration of pictures and 
statues innumerable. It convinces by its sincerity, it 
flames with amorous love, and is undoubtedly the 
truthful revelation of the soul of that passionate reck- 
less lover, soldier, and priest, the Abbe Pr6vost, who, 
like other men of genius, was born to feel 

Time ftowing in the middle of the night 
And all things moving toward a day of doom. 

Manon Lescaut is indeed more than a story ; it is, in its 
way, a symbol, an illustration of mere passion develop- 
ing into love, and love, with its infinite tenderness and 
sense of protection, destroying the grossness of passion 
and finally ending in tragic suffering and expiation. It 
is a refreshing vision of many thirsty souls held in dur- 
ance vile by weak and sensual bodies; it is an end 
devoutly to be wished but rarely attained. 

Romances of the heart, however, are not the only 
thrilling episodes connected with the history of New 
Orleans. There is a very moving little story of a really 
noble redskin who died to save his son. A Colapissa 
Indian killed a Choctaw chief and hid himself in New 
Orleans. The Choctaws followed him, found him out, 
and demanded him from the Governor, the Marquis de 
Vaudreuil, who at first refused to give him up. When he 



246 My Beloved South 

was finally forced to order his arrest, it was found that 
the Indian had escaped. His old father then appeared 
and offered his life to the Choctaws in place of that of 
his son. After a powwow the offer was accepted. The 
old man at once stretched himself on the trunk of a 
forest tree, and a mighty Choctaw chief with one great 
blow severed his head from his body. 

I have always thought one of the most splendid 
arguments against capital punishment — which, if neces- 
sary for the criminal, who is only one man, is distinctly 
brutalising to the jailors, the warders, and the hangman, 
— was the tragic action of a noble slave. 

When Louisiana was a colony it was without an 
executioner, and every white man refused the office 
with horror and loathing. Finally it was decided that 
a negro blacksmith must be forced to accept it. He was 
a man of herculean strength and health, called Jeanot, 
who belonged to the Company of the Indies. He was 
shoeing a horse when he was sent for and given his 
freedom. His heart bounded with joy at the unexpected 
news, and he was just about to express his gratitude 
when he was told that it was necessary for him to be a 
free man as he had just been appointed public execu- 
tioner. He groaned in agony. 

"Oh, God," he said, "I can't be that. Let me be a 
slave again; I '11 work my fingers to the bone for you. " 

When they refused him he went down on his knees 
and prayed and wept in anguish, crying out, "I will 
never cut off the head of a man who has done me no 
harm. Never! Do not ask it! I will die rather than 
do it. " But his masters were coldly obstinate. So he 
got up from his knees with a wild and desperate look 
and said: 

"Wait one minute." 



A Russian Romeo and Juliet 247 

He ran quickly to his cabin, picked up his hatchet, 
laid his right hand on a block of wood, and with his 
left, cut it off at one blow. Then returning to, the 
group of waiting men, he held out the bloody stump 
silently and grimly towards them. Quickly the wounded 
arm was bound up and his freedom was given him. 

There must be something wrong with a system which 
places such a stigma as the executioner bears upon a 
human being. Who in the world would ever invite a 
hangman to tea? Would n't it be a horrible blight 
upon the feast? And yet, if he is but the agent for the 
execution of strict justice, why is he not honoured? 

Because in our hearts we know that only God has the 
right to cut short human life. We arrogate too much 
to ourselves when we hang the worst criminal. Im- 
prisonment for life, with no possibility of a pardon, 
is punishment enough; wrong, injustice, oppression, 
cruelty, have more than once turned the merely weak 
into the vicious wicked. Heredity, circumstance, en- 
vironment make most of us what we are. 

If I could dwell 

Where Israfel 

Hath dwelt, and he where I, 

He might not sing so wildly well 

A mortal melody, 

While a bolder note than his might swell 

From my lyre within the sky. 

How thankful we should be if our lot makes us 
escape without breaking the laws openly, to be judged 
at the last by God, and not by man. 



CHAPTER XVII 

AN OLD-TIME PLANTATION 

Oh ! hush my heart, and 
Take thine ease, 
For here is April weather! 
The daffodils beneath the trees 
Are all a-row together. 

Reese. 

ON my way to the plantation of The MagnoHas to 
visit my friend Mary Davis, I stayed over night 
at Port Gibson, a deHghtful Httle place, all valleys and 
soft rolling hills, with a wide, grassy main street shaded 
by a fine avenue of cotton trees, clothed in the tender, 
vivid green of early spring. The cool umbrella-shaped 
trees, called the Pride of China, were just beginning to 
open their purple and amethyst blossoms, perfuming 
the air with their unforgetable pungent odour. In my 
childhood a big China tree with its wide-spreading, 
cool branches grew just outside my Aunt Elizabeth's 
window. How often have I seen her in the early morn- 
ing, in a fresh white wrapper, stretch out her pretty, 
round arm, and gather a lavender blossom for her belt. 
So I have double reason for my love of this beautiful 
tropical tree, — the dear memory that it holds for me 
and the charm of its own beauty. 

Port Gibson is more than merely a pretty town; 
it is the birthplace of that short-lived, remarkable 

248 



An Old-Time Plantation 249 

Southern genius, Irwin Russell, lawyer (who though a 
minor, was admitted to the bar after a brilliant exam- 
ination, by special act of the legislature), wanderer, 
traveller, author, and above all poet. I tried to find 
the house where he was bom, but the people I asked 
knew nothing of it. In spite of his having modelled his 
poetic style on Bums and the English poets, he was 
able to emancipate his mind from tradition and was 
really the first American author who truthfully de- 
scribed the life and character of the negro. There has 
been nothing ever written more full of movement, more 
vivid and lifelike than " Fiddling Josie, "in " Christmas 
Night in the Quarters " : 

Git yo' pardner, fust kwatillion! 
Stomp yo' feet, an' raise 'em high; 
Tune is, "Oh: dat watermillion ! 
Gwine to git it home bime-bye." 
S'lute yo' pardners; scrape perlitely — 
Don't be bumpin' gin de res' — 
Balance all! now step out rightly; 
Alluz dance yo' lebbel bes'. 
Fo'wa'd foah! — whoop up, niggers! 
Back ag'in — don't be so slow! — 
Swing cornahs! — mind de figgers! 
When I hollers, den yo' go. 
Top ladies cross ober! 
Hoi' on, tell I take a dram — 
Gemmen solo — yes I 's sober — 
Hands around! — hoi' up yo' faces. 
Don't be lookin' at yo' feet! 
Swing yo' pardners to yo' places! 
Dat 's de way — dat 's hard to beat. 
Sides fo'wa'd — when you 's ready — 
Make a bow as low 's you kin! 
Swing acrost wid op'site lady! 



250 My Beloved South 

Now we '11 let yo' swap ag'in. 

Ladies change! — shet up dat talkin'; 

Do yo' talkin' arter while ! 

Right an' lef ' ; — don't want no walkin' — 

IVIake yo' steps, and show yo' style. 

What character, what understanding, what reality, 
what go, is in this inspired jingle. The first appreciative 
helping hand extended to him was that of the Scribners, 
who have always befriended the South, and they 
published many of his poems. He only wrote when 
impelled by inspiration and everything he left will live. 
He died at twenty-six, still a boy, but tired of life and 
glad to rest. 

While I was waiting at the station for the train, 
which of course, in Southern fashion, was quite an hour 
late, a neat, well-dressed, pleasant-faced woman spoke 
to me. She was expecting her husband, who was, she 
told me, "a travelling man." She pointed to a pretty 
white cottage on the hill and said she had so little to do, 
only her housework and the clothes for herself and two 
little girls to make, that to occupy her "idle hours" she 
had taken to chicken farming. Yet it is said that 
Southern women are lazy! Fancy a woman having 
"idle hours" with her own housework to do and dress- 
making for three people. "And how," I asked her, 
have you succeeded with your chickens ? " " Remark- 
ably well," she said, "too well. I have more chickens 
than I want and about two hundred eggs a day." I 
advised her to send them to New Orleans. She said 
she had not thought of that. 

Port Glass, the next station from Port Gibson, was 
five miles from the plantation of The Magnolias. Mary 
had arranged in case of my arriving unexpectedly that 
a neighbour was to drive me over. When I got out at 



An Old-Time Plantation 251 

Port Glass, which is really only a good-sized store, I 
heard a loud "Hello!" and a gentleman came flying 
across the field and gave me the welcome of an old friend, 
saying I was to come to his house for a mid-day dinner, 
and then he would drive me to the plantation in his 
buggy and deposit me with Mary. "I hope you are 
going to be with us a long time, " he said. " Miss Mary 
has only been here a few weeks; the plantation is too 
lonesome for her since she lost her mother." We had 
arrived by this time at his flower-wreathed gate and 
there I saw the sweetest mortal in the world — a smart 
little maiden of three, in white frock, red shoes, and 
a little white sunbonnet flecked with scarlet spots. 
It was a case with us of love at first sight; the little 
woman gave me the warmest embrace and nestled 
close in my arms. And how proud she was of her gay 
morocco shoes ! They were of the same colour as those 
of Madame Octavia Levert, the celebrated Southern 
beauty, who was such a belle in the forties. Mrs. Clay 
has described her as creating a veritable sensation at a 
ball in a lemon-coloured satin gown, a wreath of coral 
on her dark braids, and coral morocco shoes. Imagine 
a belle of 191 3 being garbed in such simple fashion! 
Her dress must be embroidered with diamonds and 
pearls, with satin slippers and pearl rosettes to match. 
Fashionable ladies of the present day would scorn 
morocco slippers, even for the bath. 

The immediate land about Mary's house is four 
thousand acres in extent. It is four miles from the 
border of the plantation to her front door. My host 
made a short cut by taking tlije back road, and at 
last we reached The Magnolias, a charming white 
house with many windows, green blinds, and an ample 
gallery running across the wide front. Mary was just 



252 My Beloved South 

finishing her toilet and her buggy was waiting to go to 
Port Glass to meet me. What a welcome she gave me! 
For, lo, these many years I had been promising to come, 
and as they rolled relentlessly on Mary had at last 
given up all faith in my promises, but Scipio, never. 
Mary is not older than I am, perhaps she is even 
younger, but she belongs more to the past, having lived 
so much with her mother who had received the 
old-fashioned romantic Southern education. This ac- 
complished lady played the guitar, sang pretty, old- 
fashioned ballads to the end of her life, and spoke French 
with a delightful Southern accent. She read a great 
deal of poetry, knew Marmion and The Lady of the Lake 
by heart, had exquisite manners, and was delicately 
pretty. She even figured in a Book of Beauty of famous 
Southern women. Living in the days when there were 
hosts of servants to do everything, she knew nothing 
about the practical or domestic part of life until after 
the death of her husband, when she began to manage 
her own plantation. 

Scipio, the foreman, was born on The Magnolias and 
except for one or two trips to Vicksburg he has never 
left the plantation. He can neither read nor write but 
nevertheless he is a black gentleman and a very intelli- 
gent man. He loves in theory the great world, and 
pictures of London particularly delight him. When I 
send the Illustrated Lo7idon News to Mary, with dukes 
and duchesses in glad array standing in the grounds of 
Buckingham Palace at a garden party, Scipio's face is 
wreathed in smiles, he fairly gloats over them. But he 
loves a ball better. Mary had a lovely photograph of 
Queen Alexandra in a ball gown, which mysteriously dis- 
appeared. She at once suspected that Scipio had bor- 
rowed it, and when she issued an edict saying that the 



An Old-Time Plantation 253 

photograph must be recovered, it suddenly reappeared 
one morning and Scipio looked pensive all that day. 

I met Mary in New York on her annual shopping 
tour. With her grand manner one might have thought 
that she had a portly negro coachman and footman 
waiting outside in a barouche for her numerous parcels, 
instead of having to use like other strap-hangers a 
crowded Sixth Avenue street car. I faithfully promised 
her then that this time in America I would visit The 
Magnolias. But for twenty-five years this promise had 
been given and not kept, so naturally she was somewhat 
doubtful of my intentions and she said more than once 
to Scipio, "I don't believe Miss Betty's coming." 
Scipio never failed to answer confidently, "Yes, she 
will. Miss Mary." "What makes you think so?" 
Mary asked. "Why, Miss Mary," he said (looking at 
my photograph), "she has got one of dem unforgittin* 
faces. Look at dem eyes and de square set of dat jaw. 
She 's gwine to come, and you better be gittin' ready 
for her, I tell yo' dat right now." 

Even in all the years when Mary ceased expecting 
me Scipio kept faith, and when I wrote to her from New 
Orleans saying I would be with her in a few days and 
she told him, he said, "Well, thank de Lawd, we 
suttenly will be gittin' de news from London now. 
Dat 's what makes me say what I do say. Take dese 
people wid de unforgittin' faces an' sooner or later 
you can always depen' on *em." 

The day before my arrival he noticed an engraving 
of Queen Victoria at the time of her coronation and 
said to his mistress, "Miss Mary, I 'm gwine to bring 
dat picture of de Queen from de hall upstairs and hang 
it over de mantelpiece in Mrs. O'Connor's room; it will 
make her feel more at home and she won't be so lone- 



254 My Beloved South 

some for England." Mary said Scipio regarded me as 
an intimate friend of the Queen, and she had never 
been able to disillusion him of the idea. 

He is getting a little grey now ; it troubles him, and 
he said, "Miss Mary, I 'm gwine ter have a black silk 
cap to wear at de table, 'cause Mrs. O'Connor is sho' 
not to like grey hair. " 

"Why not?" said Mary. "She has grey hair of her 
own." 

But Scipio was firm. He said: 

"Nem-mine, she 's sho' not to like grey hair on a 
ole nigger." 

So at dinner the night I arrived, the big silver can- 
delabra, brilUantly burnished, holding half-a-dozen 
candles each, were lighted in my honour, and Scipio, in 
spotless white linen vest and coat, black trousers, and 
a neat black silk skull-cap, waited at table with old- 
fashioned courtesy. 

Next day Mary proposed that we should drive to an 
adjoining plantation which had recently been bought 
by some people from the West. Scipio looked very 
gloomy when told to harness up the buggy. He said, 
"Miss Mary, you don' want ter know dat 'ar person. 
She 's common." 

Mary said, "Why, I saw the lady in church. She 's 
quite a nice looking woman." 

"Dat don't make no diffunce, " said Scipio; "I tell 
you, Miss Mary, she ain't yo' kine. " 

" How do you know that?" said Mary. 

"A woman what don't know de faces of her own 
flowers ain't wuth knowin'. An' dis here one don't 
know de Duchess of Luxemburg from Marshal Niel. 
She don't know a picayune from a Cherokee rose. She 
don't know love-lies-bleedin' from heartsease. " 



An Old-Time Plantation 255 

"One," remarked Mary, "often needs the other." 

Scipio did not notice the interruption, but went on, 

"Nor do she know gillyflower from larkspur. No, 
ma'am, Miss Mary, you kin be lonesome, but you don't 
want to know dem folks. When I goes over dar for a 
errand she axes me to introduce her to her own flowers. 
Now nothin' kin be commoner dan dat. Why, part of 
being a lady is to be kin' to flowers. I done seen yo' ma 
kiss one ob dem fresh-faced Caroline Testers more dan 
once, I is dat." 

Mary actually gave up the idea of making the 
acquaintance of the lady of the flower garden, and 
Scipio, as usual, won the day. Instead of a drive, we 
took a long walk over the plantation without hats or 
gloves, meeting but one person, a troubled, anxious 
darkey boy, driving a fine, refractory black and white 
cow. She had been sold by Scipio to a plantation seven 
miles away, and in a fit of homesickness had deserted 
her calf and had come back to The Magnolias. 

Mary said, "It serves me right; I should never sell 
any cattle. It breaks my heart to do it, but I thought 
we had too many cows, and Scipio said we had better 
let just this one go. Now we will have to buy her back 
again." 

We called to Scipio, who came and gave a Gargantuan 
laugh. 

"Why, Miss Mary, dat 's de cow what you named 
Psyche; I tole you no cow what was named dat funny 
name could behave like udder cows. It 's a good job 
de man ain't paid me for her an' all I got to do is to go 
over an' fetch her calf. " 

The boy then explained that the cow was not the 
only truant. 

"We thinks. Miss Mary, dat de red steer dun come 



256 My Beloved South 

home too, we can't find him nowhere." And, sure 
enough, not far away, with a rope dangHng from his 
neck, was the red steer grazing contentedly and switch- 
ing his tail. "There now," said Mary, "I will never 
sell another animal while I live. " 

When we finished our walk I lingered on the balcony, 
for the early spring flowers had just begun to bloom. 
The honeysuckle and coral honeysuckle and little star 
jessamine were making the air sweet with perfume, and 
in a plant at the end of the balcony I recognised an old 
and long-sought-for friend. "Mary," I said, "isn't 
this a night-blooming jessamine?" 

Mary answered: 

Not think of thee! O friendship's bloom. 
Is like the flower that shuns the light 

Which only sheds a rich perfume. 

When veiled in absence from the light. 

"Then it is my long-lost darHng, " I said. 

"I have spoken," replied Mary. 

"And, " I rejoined sadly, " I do so long to see it bloom 
once again." 

"Then stay," said Mary, "until it sheds a rich 
perfume." 

" No, " I said, "I can't wait now, but some day I will 
come back in the month when the jessamine blooms, 
for next to carnations I love best the night-blooming 
jessamine. When I was a child and went to bed before 
it opened, my mother always laid a spray of it on my 
pillow, and if I awakened I instantly put my hand out 
to hold it to my face. My Rose, when I am in London, 
often puts a flower beside my bed, and when wakeful- 
ness comes, it is a fragrant comforter. There are some 



An Old-Time Plantation 257 

lovely things I want unchanged in heaven. I hope the 
flowers will all be the same. " 

"Yes," said Mary; "the same flowers, and the same 
birds and the same butterflies, and, oh, my dear, above 
all, the same dearly loved and gone-before people. " 

That night after I had gone to bed, Scipio said, 
"Miss Mary, Miss Betty" (he had dropped the Mrs. 
O'Connor), " looks right young, don't she?" A pecu- 
liarity of his is that, like children, he always wants the 
people he likes to be young. So Mary answered with 
hesitation, for she knew it would be a blow to him, 
"She isn't very old, but you know she is a grand- 
mother." Scipio winced. "For de Lawd's sake. Miss 
Mary, she ought not to tell nobody dat! Why do she? 
Anyway she is just as neat as if she was sixteen, 'cause 
I bin in her room and put some roses on her dressin' 
table and I jes' took a look aroun'." 

I told Scipio that later I was going to Vicksburg to 
pay a visit. He said he hoped I would like it, that he 
did n't. " Dey tells me de hotels is good in Vicksburg, 
but I think dese here town darkies is mis'rable creatures ; 
dey ain't got no awes of de white folks. My Mammy 
brought me up to have awes of white folks, and I think 
it 's jes' what a darkey ought to have. Dem Vicksburg 
town ones, wid brown boots an' great big teeth all 
filled up wid gole, I ain't got no use for, and I tells dem 
dat myself when I goes to Vicksburg. But I got a 
sister dat lives dere, she 's a mighty good washerwoman 
and a mighty good woman. Miss Mary will tell you 
dat. Her name is Lucinda Norton, and if you wants 
her to wait on you I will get my niece to write a letter 
forme." 

The night after my arrival Mary and I went to a 
negro wedding in the New Town Landing Baptist 
17 



258 My Beloved South 

Church. It was a very long entertainment, and would 
have been much more magnificent, if the boll-weevil 
had not so seriously interfered with the income of the 
various participants. The church was crowded, with 
people standing up even outside the door. Two seats 
in the first row had been reserved for Mary and her 
guest. In a few moments Mendelssohn's Wedding 
March was played by ear on a melodeon. It was not 
quite Mendelssohn's Wedding March but strongly 
reminiscent of it, with little independent twirls and 
imaginative flights in between the original harmony. 

Then Bacchus Top, the bride's father, and his 
daughter, Blanche Evelyn Top, slowly advanced up the 
aisle, followed by a bridesmaid and groomsman, the 
bride's mother, Mrs. Bacchus Top, and Charlie Top, 
the brother. Blanche, in spite of her name, was an 
indelible ink spot. She looked like a pillar of soot 
clothed in diaphanous white swiss muslin, a long white 
veil, a colossal wreath of orange blossoms towering to a 
point in front like a cathedral, and large white shoes 
with immense rosettes. She carried in her hand a 
Bible covered in silver paper, evidently having heard 
that smart brides now carry prayer-books. She pre- 
sented a wonderful figure, and certainly ' ' Solomon in all 
his glory " was never arrayed like that. 

The bridegroom, a small, bandy-legged, pathetically 
self-conscious, black negro, stood at the foot of the 
altar waiting for Blanche. Large check trousers of 
brown and white adorned his barrel-hoop legs; brown 
shoes, a black swallow-tail coat, a white waistcoat, and 
a blue tie completed his costume. The black preacher 
took the marriage license out of his pocket and read it 
in a sonorous voice to the congregation. This was to 
be a marriage " wid a pair of licenses an' de book, " not 



An Old-Time Plantation 259 

a "takin' up" — I suppose to show that the marriage 
was really a legal one. With due gusto and decorum 
he then proceeded to unite Blanche Evelyn Top and 
Billy Brooks in holy wedlock. 

After the preacher had bestowed his blessing, a tall, 
jet-black negro advanced, and delivered a short address. 
He became very eloquent and some of the guests wept, 
while Blanche Evelyn sobbed aloud, and Billy Brooks 
stood first on one large brown foot and then on the 
other and looked immensely uncomfortable. The 
orator said, "We gathers here to witness this secret 
cirimony." (I turned to Mary and said, "Why secret 
with about three hundred people in the church ? ' ' Mary 
said, "My dear, you have been too long in England; 
he means sacred.'") "We fetches up a daughter," he 
continued, "and we watches ober her day an' night. 
She 's a good gal of fine elements, an' den when she 's 
young, an' fresh an' tender, an' useful, we is obleeged 
to give her up. A stranger comes an' she des flies into 
dem arms of his'n befo' you kin say 'Jack Roberson." 
(Mary leaned over to me and said, "Billy Brooks was 
bom in the next cabin and has played with Blanche 
Evelyn since they were six months old!") Loud sobs 
came from Blanche Evelyn. The father, Bacchus Top, 
ejaculated, "Now ain't dat de troof. " And the 
congregation said, "You spoke a parable." 

The speaker continued: "When William S. Brooks 
fust axed Bacchus Top fo' de hand ob Blanche Evelyn, 
he declined de idea, but love gits ober de roughest 
places, he don't keer fur jolts, not inde beginnin', any- 
way. In de een Bacchus Top saw dat William Brooks 
had consumed his time in a way dat was favourable to 
savin' a right smart sum ob money, so he done gib his 
consent to de marriage, an' dat 's how it come to take 



26o My Beloved South 

place. " (A few sniffles from the congregation, mothers 
and fathers, I presume, of young and tender daughters.) 
"Yes, fnen's an' neighbours, an' young an' ole, an' rich 
an pore, after dis here secret cirimony, de most secret 
condition in de whole ob dis here roun' worl', arises for a 
man and a woman, dey is jined togedder in holy wedlock 
as long as dey live, unless dey git a divo'ce, and dis is 
somethin' which ain't only occurred onct on Miss 
Mary's plantation, and not onct since de boll-weevil is 
come, and even dough de boll-weevil, please God, goes 
back to whar* he comes from, I hope it will never happen 
agin. Well, all ob us knows dis here Billy Brooks, 
He is a good man, I tell you, an' a splendid cotton 
picker. We all knows Miss Blanche Evelyn as one ob 
dese high fliers, but neber min', she 's young, an' dar 's 
nothin' like matrimony to make a woman fly low instid 
ob high. An', anyhow, she 's bin a good chile to her ma 
and her pa, and she '11 be a good wife to Billy Brooks. 
He ain't like so many husbands, a stranger from a' 
adjoinin' plantation; but a man must always be a 
stranger to his wife till he 's married to her; den he shows 
hissef as hissef, and den she shows hersef as hersef, 
an' den sometimes de whole roun' worl' is full ob trouble. 
So dough Blanche Evelyn and Billy Brooks has knowed 
each other all dey lives, dey 's strangers till Billy Brooks 
has showed hissef what he is an' what he 's goin' to be, 
and Blanche Evelyn has showed hersef what she is an* 
what she 's goin' to be. You all dun heerd ob de man 
what got married an' when he tuk his wife home, he got 
out a pair ob breeches an' laid dem on de baid. Den 
he say to his wife, ' Look at dem, an' tell me who 's 
gwine to wear 'em; ef it 's you, I wants to know it right 
now, 'cause it will save a mighty heap ob trouble. Ef 
it 's me, I '11 keep 'em on dis time forward. ' Now in dis 



An Old-Time Plantation 261 

weddin' maybe needer Billy Brooks nor Blanche Evelyn 
knows who 's agwine to wear dis garment but I does, 
dough I ain't agwine to tell nobody ; I ain't gwine to say 
a word. But nebber min' who 's gwine to wear dem 
breeches, I sho' does want dis here man an' dis here 
woman in sperrit an' life, as long as dey libs together, 
dat dey love each oder, dat dey '11 make a home de 
one for de oder, an' pick cotton togedder and have 
children togedder, and live to be ole people. 'Cause 
when married folks lives togedder dese many years an' 
gits de habits ob each oder, in de een dey '11 be one 
person. Dis is de good luck an' de good fortune dat I 
wishes for Mr. and Mrs. William S. Brooks. " 

He then unfastened a large gold cross from the neck 
of Blanche and held it in his hand. A hymn was sung, 
the bride and groom sat down, and two men advanced 
with two very large washing baskets, one of them full 
and the other empty. Mr. P. C. Hall, he of the "se- 
cret" discourse, stepped down between the two baskets 
and held up in front of the congregation the gold cross, 
with a suspiciously large diamond in the centre. " Dis 
here, ladies an' gentlemen, is from Miss Mary Davis, de 
owner of dis plantation, an' mo' den dat, a sho' nuff 
lady, and the cross am gole an' de diamond do shine." 
The cross was then handed back to Blanche Evelyn, who 
adjusted it about her neck. He next held up a small 
glass lamp and read on the card, "Mrs. Joseph Lang- 
ham to Mr. and Mrs. William Brooks, an' de light shall 
shine, dat 's what we all hopes for 'em, an' always nuff 
oil for it to shine wid. " 

He then exhibited a pair of heavy, unbleached cotton 
sheets from Mrs. Delilah Young. "Dese here sheets is 
strong and tough, dear sisters and brederin'; I only 
hopes dat de love ob de bride an' groom is goin' to last 



262 My Beloved South 

as long as what dese sheets is. It '11 take a many a 
year to wear 'em out. Maybe some day, an* I hope 
it '11 be a long day fo' de sheet an' de man, dey '11 be de 
windin' sheet ob Billy Brooks. " Billy Brooks shivered. 
The sheets were then solemnly placed back in the basket. 
"An' here," said Mr. Hall, "is de present ob de bride's 
ma, Mrs. Bacchus Top" — a frying-pan, a teakettle, 
and a large sieve were held up. "Dese things is fur de 
kitchen an' to encourage de bride to stay in it, fur de 
most ob de time ; dat 's where de wife belongs, wid her 
fryin'-pans an' her teakittles an' her sieves, an' when 
she ain't dar, wid her sewin' an' her mendin', she ought 
to be waitin' wid a lovin' smile for her husband to come 
home. But on his side he must n't keep her waitin' too 
long ; no, sir, when de fry is ready, dar 's whar he ought 
to be." 

The cooking utensils clattered into the waiting basket 
and he held up a long pink envelope sealed with two 
pink flying cupids. "Dis am de cheque from de 
bride's pa to her, an' it don't make no difference what de 
amount is, de cheque am here. De rest ob de people on 
dis plantation ain't got no use for a bank, an' a bank 
ain't got no use for dem, but Mr. Top made hissef into 
what might be called a citizen wid needs for a bank, 
an' you can't get no furder dan dis. He is got up wid, 
an' befo', de bird an' de worm, he is toiled, he is a 
shinin' mark for every big or little coloured man on de 
place to follow." Loud applause with, "He is dat, 
amen!" from the men, and "Hallelujah!" from the 
women. The envelope was then carefully handed to 
Blanche Evelyn. Then two very meagre towels were 
held up, with Mr. and Mrs. Zack Foster's compHments. 
Mr. Hall smiled genially : " Now did anybody eber see de 
beat ob dat? Brer Zack Foster suttenly is a clean man. 



An Old-Time Plantation 263 

an' he wants Billy Brooks to wash his hands as often as 
he do." 

Next came from Mr. Ned Bullen a lace collar with a 
flattering remark about the beautiful neck of the bride. 
This was followed by a long list of heterogeneous ob- 
jects, none of them in the least useful; therefore they 
gave particular pleasure to the giver and the receiver 
and all of them were held up to the audience and com- 
mented upon as they were transferred from one basket 
to another. 

The baskets were now removed, and Mr. and Mrs. 
William S. Brooks turned about to receive the con- 
gratulations of the guests. An enormous pink cake, pro- 
fusely covered with white roses, and a tray bearing wine 
glasses were passed round with a distinctly heady brand 
of wine. I only sipped a little, as it seemed composed 
entirely of aromatic alcohol. We then helped our- 
selves to a small portion of cake, congratulated the 
bride and groom, and drove home in the beautiful 
spring moonlight. I was vastly and tenderly amused 
by the evening's festivities, which seemed to have trans- 
ported me back again to the scenes of my childhood. 

My week with Mary was a visit all too short, for the 
house was full of memories of the old South, old letters, 
old engravings, old books, which I had no time to see 
satisfactorily. It is curious how alike the tastes of 
Southern people were. Every old library in the South, 
no matter how meagre, contains Chambers' Journal, 
the copies all bound in glossy yellow covers with a 
little border of green leaves round the edge and a 
branch of green in the centre; Byron, Moore, Keats, 
Shelley, Tennyson, Thackeray, a complete set of Scott 
and Dickens, and several Books of Beauty. I came 
across an adored one of my childhood — Women of 



264 My Beloved South 

Beauty and Heroism from Semiramis to Eugenie, with 
charming engravings of Penelope, Beatrice, Jeanne 
d'Arc, Isabella, Diane de Poitiers, Anne Boleyn, Mary- 
Queen of Scots, Pocahontas, Nell Gwynne, Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, Marie Antoinette, Queen Victoria 
(rose in hair), Charlotte Bronte, and the "Maid of 
Saragoza." 

Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear; 
Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; 

Her fellows flee — she checks their base career; 
The foe retires — she heads the ralljang host: 
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost? 

A good verse, with its martial ring, for the Suffragists. 

All Southern races are instinctive lovers of poetry 
and music. Lisa Lehman's "Persian Garden" from the 
immortal Omar Khayyam is known and sung through- 
out the South; and when I tell them she is a grand- 
daughter of Robert Chambers they feel that she is 
a well-known friend. 

Among a bundle of faded letters written by Mary's 
mother to her father soon after they were married was 
one dated on a Mississippi steamboat in 1857. She 
said: 

The journey has been perfectly delightful. The steamer 
is large and luxurious, beautifully furnished, and the state- 
rooms are very comfortable. Several of our mutual friends 
from the Delta have been at the landing stages to say a word 
of welcome and give me bunches of roses. The people on 
board are very interesting. Mr. and Mrs. George D. 
Prentiss have a stateroom next mine. He is the most bril- 
liant talker I ever met, so witty, eloquent, and deHghtful. 
Mrs. Prentiss runs her husband close in wit and they are 
an excellent foil for each other and an example to all hus- 



An Old-Time Plantation 265 

bands and wives inasmuch as they never spoil each other's 
stories. You do not hear him say, ' On Tuesday last I was 
walking down Fourth Street in Louisville, Kentucky, ' and 
Mrs. Prentiss interrupt him with, 'No, my dear, it was 
Saturday afternoon.' As if it matters to the hearer when a 
story is told whether the incident occurred on Saturday 
afternoon, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. After seeing the 
Prentisses play into each other's hands with such distinction 
and humour, never again will I correct you, my dear, even 
if I know your story to be entirely of the imagination, and 
if nothing in it happened on any day of the week. 

"There is a beautiful play actress on board, and her 
husband is a handsome man with large dark eyes and a 
Roman nose. They say his name is Booth and he comes 
from England. They have lost their only son, a year old 
babe, and they actually seem to be deeply grieved. I would 
like, in a Christian spirit, to speak to her, but the ladies 
on board would not understand my action, and it takes 
courage, for you know none of my friends and acquaintances 
have ever in their lives spoken to a play actress." 

Actors in those days were regarded as such pariahs, 
so different and apart from the rest of the world, that 
evidently this lady was greatly surprised at their 
suffering grief like ordinary mortals. Fifty-four years, 
have, however, reversed the position o' the gentle 
chatelaine of the plantation and the play actress of 
to-day. Now, this lady's granddaughter would prob- 
ably be waiting at the wings to present a bunch of 
violets and an admiring letter to a star, who, if capri- 
cious, would have no hesitation in refusing to see her, 
for play actresses are no longer pariahs and outcasts, 
but are veritable queens of the world. 

On the day of my departure, when I looked for the 
last time at the pretty, sleepy old house, with its long 
roomy verandah in its flowery setting of early spring 



266 My Beloved South 

blossoms, my heart was full of regret and, absent- 
mindedly, I brushed against the freshly painted fence. 
But Scipio was quite equal to the occasion. He said, 
"Des a minute. Miss Betty, while I des assassinate a 
flannel cloth in turpentine, and I '11 take dat paint off 
your dress in a jiffy." And in the twinkling of an eye 
the dress was cleaned and we started on our journey. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 

The very thought of this is sweet; 
What though the memory be fleet, 
The sound, the odour, but a snatch? 
It is the clicking of the latch. 

Reese. 

NEW TOWN LANDING is only a mile from The 
Magnolias, and Mary offered to go with me to 
Natchez, which would give us a day and a night on the 
river. The landings on the Mississippi are not land- 
ings in the builders' or architects' sense of the word, for, 
if nature and the river do not make it, there is no landing 
at all, and at New Town the bank of the river is so steep 
that it makes the bridge almost perpendicular. With 
the deep brown water flowing beneath and not even a 
rope to offer a sense of protection, my coiirage failed 
me for a moment; but the captain and chief mate ran 
up the plank, each gave me his arm, and with my eyes 
fixed on the blue sky, I found myself quickly deposited 
on deck. Mary, even more tremulous than I, followed 
me with the same assistance. 

There are now comparatively few passengers travel- 
ling on these boats. The bends of the river, Palmyra 
Lake, and the many landings where oil, bacon, meal, 
flour, com, ploughs, rakes, spades, and cotton are 
unloaded, extend a journey of two hours by rail into one 

267 



268 My Beloved South 

of a day and a night by water. When I was a Httle 
girl and my father brought me North to place me in a 
board ng school, it was not so long after the war but 
that some of the splendid steamers still plied their way 
up and down the Mississippi. We were a week on 
board and, child as I was, that mighty, uncontrolled 
river even then held a wondrous charm for me, and I 
recollect the week of dancing and singing and laughter 
and light and the gay people who only went to bed at 
rosy dawn. 

It was the last week in September, and the autumn 
sunshine was of a most luminous gold. At night the 
river was a veritable diamond-studded lake, while 
flaming torches lighted the splendid dark forests 
standing in their myriad hosts on the banks, and soft 
winds stole northward to us from the Gulf of Mexico, 
bringing the sweetest odours of honeysuckle and orange- 
groves, and the tonic breath of the pines. We could 
almost hear the rustle of the lime trees on the banks. 
The "roustabouts, " or porters, were up all night, as we 
stopped at the various landings, where we deposited 
barrels of molasses and flour, cornmeal, sugar, coffee, 
whisky and brandy, kegs of salt fish and pickles, and, 
for the richer planters, all sorts and kinds of delicious 
condiments. The rousters, like the jinriksha men, 
descend from one generation to another. Tall, black, 
muscular, healthy, hearty, abnormally strong specimens 
of manhood, they can pick up a barrel weighing one 
hundred and ninety-six pounds and sling it on their 
shoulders as easily as an ordinary man would handle a 
baseball. 

As soon as the sun went down, the banjo began to 
give out its song as the night jessamine gives out its 
perfume. One tall, dandified negro silenced the voices 



The Mississippi River 269 

on the deck above, as he picked up his banjo and 
sang: 

Late in de fall de ribber mos' dry, 
Water lie low and de banks lie high, 
Bullfrog roll up his pants jes' so. 
An' he wade acrost from sho' to sho'. 
Oh, you gallernipper, 
Down on de Mississipper, 
Gallernipper, 
Mississipper, 

0-hi-O! 

Water so shaller dat de eel can't swim 
'Dout kickin' up de dus' in de middle o* de stream; 
Sun shine hot, an' de catfish say, 
'We 'se gettin' right freckle-faced down our way!' 
Oh, you gallernipper. . . . 

I remember still every detail of our journey and my 
first impressions of that wonderful stream of mystery 
and charm, the slow-winding Mississippi — that river 
unique in all the world, which can boast of a duel 
fought on account of a sneering remark made about its 
greatness. 

The authentic story says that about forty years ago 
the Chevalier Tomasi, a very learned man, an academi- 
cian, who was living in New Orleans, pubHshed a 
statement about this river. He said that technically he 
could stop the river, make it deeper, or restrict it within 
scientific boundaries. A fiery Creole remarked to 
Tomasi that he was too sanguine about the management 
of the Mississippi, as it was a very headstrong stream, 
as changeable, as uncertain, and as fascinating as a 
woman. Apparently, the Creator of the universe had 
rules for everything in the world except that unique 



270 My Beloved South 

body of water, which was a law unto itself. To this 
remark Tomasi gave a contemptuous shrug of his 
shoulders, and said with a sneer, "Oh, you Americans 
know nothing of the geographical world ; there are rivers 
in Europe so much larger than the Mississippi that they 
make it by contrast a mere creek." The Creole replied, 
white with rage, "Sir, I will never, as a Louisianian, 
permit the great Mississippi to be insulted in my 
presence. " And he accompanied the remark with the 
flirt of a glove in the Chevalier's face. 

A challenge was the consequence. Seconds were 
chosen, and the party repaired to the famous duelling 
ground of the day, where the Creole wounded Professor 
Tomasi, mortally, it was thought. Soon afterwards, 
however, the Chevalier appeared in the street with a 
bandage about his jaw. He had lost a good deal of 
blood, and was very pale. When asked about the duel, 
he stripped off the bandage and it was seen that the 
sword of the defender of the Mississippi had passed 
across his mouth from one cheek to the other. The 
Chevalier said, "I live, as you see, scarred for life, and 
my antagonist lives. That is the fault of your miserable 
American steel. My sword, when I gave him a deadly 
thrust, bent as if it were made of lead. " But there was 
no one to defend American steel, and the Chevalier did 
not fight a second duel. 

And, although my time was limited, the allurement of 
the mighty river called to me like the voice of a siren. 
There are many fine plantations to be seen. The 
banks can boast of primeval forests rich in game of 
every description. One huntsman on board said he and 
a party of friends, ten or twelve men, had killed twenty- 
nine black bears in one day. There are numbers of 
trappers living in the woods who make a good income 



The Mississippi River 271 

out of skunk and otter, beaver and coon, and the much- 
desired grey squirrel. 

Nevertheless, the life along the river is as intimate 
as that of the Thames. Every planter knows the 
estate of every other planter, and the familiar history 
for generations of each family. "Davis Bend" is 
named for the master of Brierfield, the plantation of 
Jeff Davis; "Ashfield" belongs to Lady Ritchie, who 
married Sir James Ritchie; and "Limerick" is so-called 
in honour of an Irish family. 

Although it was dusk a tall beacon light announced 
the landing of " Hard Times," a misnomer it seems, as 
the owner was a millionaire, and travelled up and down 
the river to superintend nine plantations. He lived 
during the winter at "Winter Quarters." 

"Yes," said Mary to the Captain, "there shines the 
beacon at 'Hard Times' and all the family are dead. 
I remember when I was going there to visit Mrs. Gilles- 
pie she wrote to tell me that her husband would meet 
me at the landing. She had gathered seventy varieties 
of roses that day, to glorify the house for my coming. " 

" She loved roses, then, " I said. 

"Oh," said Mary, "she was the sweetest, daintiest 
creature; she loved everything that was beautiful. " 

"They were about the richest people on the river," 
remarked the Captain. 

"And yet," said Mary, "the early years of their 
married life were dreadfully overshadowed. Mrs. 
Gillespie lost her first three children. When they died 
Mr. Gillespie would allow no hand to touch them but his 
own ; he even carried the little coffins in his arms to the 
grave. Then came the last son. Jack, and he lived to 
grow up and was very handsome and clever and charm- 
ing, but he, too, died young. " 



272 My Beloved South 

" Luckily, " said the Captain, "his father and mother 
had both gone before him. Mrs. Gillespie died from a 
cold she contracted while making peach preserves on 
a charcoal fire. It was in the autumn and she wore a 
white muslin gown and got chilled, and never recovered 
from an attack of pneumonia. " 

"Yes," said Mary, "she was one of those notable 
housewives, who made their own preserves, and pre- 
served peaches in brandy and cordials, and cherry and 
peach and apricot brandies. How delicious they were, 
and what pride the old-fashioned Southern house- 
keeper took in her still-room!" 

My mind wandered back to the good old days when 
the splendid opulent plantations were intact, and not 
divided up into small holdings and leased as they are 
now to the negroes. Nor was the boll-weevil known 
then, that tragic insect, which has brought almost as 
much distress upon the South as the Civil War, but 
from which it is already nobly recovering. 

But I was recalled to the present by a Mississippi man 
who had been regarding me closely and steadily for at 
least five minutes. He was, I learned afterwards, only 
two years and six months old, and, like Napoleon, was 
small of stature, but he made the most of his inches by 
an erect and proud carriage. His face was perfectly 
serious, not in the least sullen, but thoughtful. He wore 
his hat, however, like a thorough rake. It was the 
smallest Panama I have ever seen; it turned up all 
round except for a pert peak in front, and he carried it 
jauntily dangling on one ear. He was quite alone on 
deck, no nurse or mother interfered with his complete 
freedom. After his close scrutiny of me, although he 
did n't smile I thought I detected an urbane expression 
on his little square face, so I said, "How do you do?" 



The Mississippi River 273 

and put out my hand. He was a very long time taking 
it, but finally he solemnly shook hands with me and then 
retreated. In ten minutes he was back again to make 
a second examination, which seemed more satisfactory 
than the first. I said to him, "You are slow in mak- 
ing up your mind, but I have an idea you would make 
a fast friend." He said, "Oh, Ouch!" and again he 
promenaded the deck, going to the extreme end of the 
steamer. After a short meditation there, he returned 
and standing as straight as a little soldier before me, he 
said, " Up ! " I gathered him in my arms, sat him on my 
knee, smoothed his tow head, placed his hat at a more 
serious angle, and thus our acquaintance began. "I 
thought," I said, "that rakish hat meant something." 
He grinned, showing at the time a good set of strong 
little teeth, and pointing to a negro carrying a barrel 
said, "Nigger work." Then I gave him my watch, 
which has a good loud introductory tick, and it just 
fitted his ear. For quite ten minutes that amused him, 
and the knife and a red lucky bean in my bunch of 
charms found great favour in his eyes. At the end of 
this examination a new treasure was discovered, my 
little brown leather bag, bought for me by my dear far- 
away English Rose in Wiesbaden. It opened and shut 
with a loud snap. I opened it, he shut it, and this game 
we played for some interesting moments. Finally, he 
dived into its contents and found a small pair of scis- 
sors in a red leather case. Oh joy ! he could hold them 
in his small fingers, they just fitted and yet were safely 
closed. He was now conversational, trusting, and 
happy. 

The Captain said, "It looks like war with Mexico." 
" Mex, " said the Mississippi man to me. 
"Anyhow," said the Captain, "Uncle Sam will 
18 



274 My Beloved South 

manage these Dagos. He made things all right with 
Cuba." 

"Cuba! Ba!" said the Mississippi man, greatly- 
astonished. 

Then his father appeared and said, "See here, young 
man, I 've been a-lookin' for you. I thought you 'd 
went overboard." 

"No, "said the child. 

"I'm mighty glad you ain't," said the father. 
"Maw wants to wash your face. Come now, the 
lady' s tired, come along, Albert. " 

Albert stiffened. " No, I won't go. " 

His father said, " I ain't never seen sich a child. We 
ain't got no neighbours. Albert 's been brought up on 
a plantation, he ain't never seen no people till to-day, 
and he ain't but two years and six months old, but he 
ain't afraid of nothin' on earth, neither bulls, nor cows, 
nor horses, nor people. He ain't never seen a boat till 
to-day but he do just like he owned the boat, an' now 
he 's doin' just like he owned you. He 's slow to make 
up his mind, but he dun made it up 'bout you, an' he 
likes you just the same as he does his maw. Now, son, 
stop Hssenin' to the watch an' shut up the bag, an' come 
an' see brother Robert. " 

" No, " said Albert doggedly, "no Wobbert. " 

"Listen to him," said his father, "he just loves 
Robert. Here," giving him a five-cent piece, "take 
this nickel to Robert. " Albert took the nickel and with 
an enchanting smile presented it to me. "May I keep 
it?" I said to the father, "in remembrance of a very 
brave little gentleman?" 

"Yes, ma'am," said the father, "an' shore he is. 
I 've yet got to see Albert afraid of any livin' thing. 
He 's little, but he 's game all through, an' he 's got a 



The Mississippi River 275 

heap of sense <in', more, that chile 's got judgment. 
Come on, son, mother '11 be searchin' for us in a minute." 

And Albert wept at our parting, not angrily like the 
ordinary child, but a few, self -repressed, strong, manly 
tears. 

Later he came back of his own accord to kiss me 
good-bye. He was n't a cuddling, appealing child. 
He will not win friends by his charm, but by his straight- 
forward honesty, his wonderful courage, and supreme 
confidence. He is one of Mississippi's smallest sons, 
and he comes of the people, but he already does credit 
to the State. The last I saw of him he was trotting 
behind his mother, a tuft of his tow hair sticking out 
beyond the peak of the Panama hat, which had resumed 
its saucy angle. His father, carrying the baby, offered 
him his hand, but he declined it and walked alone. 
Perhaps some day Albert will be a great soldier, or a 
great statesman, or even President of the United States. 

In the evening Mary and I sat late on deck. It was 
the 17th of March, and the Captain, who was of Irish 
descent, gave me a small brooch containing a figure of 
St. Patrick in porcelain surrounded by a little silken 
wreath of shamrock, and the flag of Erin was hung in 
the cabin. I think there was more real sentiment for 
St. Patrick along the banks of the Mississippi than in the 
East. A young journalist on The Herald describing to 
me a St. Patrick's day parade in New York said, " It is 
wonderfully democratic and is carried out in the widest 
catholic spirit. First, there will be one Irishman and 
two Jews, then two Irish and four Greeks, then four 
Irishmen and two Turks and two Armenians, then six 
Irishmen and ten Italians and a scattering of Germans ; 
all of them wearing large bunches of shamrock, and 
nobody knowing why the Dickens they have got it on; 



276 My Beloved South 

but what they do know is there will be "lashins" of 
drink towards nightfall, one or two good, stirring 
fights, and any number of broken heads. So they all 
enjoy themselves, though it is Babel, for they cannot 
speak each other's tongue. " 

Although the boats are no longer splendid on the 
Mississippi, the charm of the great river is there. The 
splendid flaming sunsets of ruddy gold and deepest rose 
and purest violet blaze in the west and turn the water 
into lakes of living fire, and the rousters still play and 
sing on the lower deck after nightfall begins. A good 
baritone lifted up his voice tunefully in: 

Adam neber had no mammy 

Fur to take him on her knee 

And tell him what was right, and show him 

Things he 's ought to see. 

I know, down in my heart, 

He 'd a' let dat apple be; 

But Adam neber had no dear old mammy. 

Adam neber had no childhood, 

Playin' round de cabin do'. 

He neber had no pickininny life. 

He started in a great big grown-up man, and what is mo', 

He neber had no right kind of a wife. 

Even in this Httle ballad Eve bears more than her 
share of the blame. " He neber had no right kind of a 
wife." Possibly not, but Adam was a weak creature. 
He needed no temptation, he was just as ready as he 
could be for that apple, and even a woman with a strong 
will who would have forbidden him to eat it could not 
have stopped him. If he had been as contrary as many 
men, just to show his independence of character, he 
would have eaten two apples instead of one. 



The Mississippi River 277 

My room on the steamer was very comfortable. It 
was furnished with a double brass bedstead, a chest of 
drawers, an ample washstand, and, notwithstanding the 
noise at the landings, I slept well. Next morning we 
arrived in good time at Natchez. Mary is a great lover 
of poetry, and she roused me quite early saying, "Get 
up, sleepyhead; here we are in Natchez-under-the- 
hill. " I was very regretful at being disturbed in my 
unusual slumber, and grumbled, "And what of Natchez- 
under-the-hill?" "My dear," she said, "don't you 
remember that illustrious gentleman, Jim Bludso?' 

"'He were n't no saint; them engineers 
Is pretty much alike. 
One wife in Natchez-under-the-hill 
And another one here in Pike.'" 

"Well," I said, "well." 

'"All boats has their day on the Mississippi, 

And her day came at last. 
The Movastar was a better boat 

But the Belle she would n't be passed; 
And so she came tearin' along that night. 

The oldest craft on the line, 
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, 

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. 

The fire bust out as she clar'd the bar. 

And brunt a hole in the night, 
And quick as a flash she turned and made 

For that wilier-bank on the right. 
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out 

Over all the infernal roar, 
"I '11 hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last galoot 's ashore." 



278 My Beloved South 

Through the hot, black wreath of the burnin' boat, 

Jim Bludso's voice was heard, 
And they all had trust in his cussedness 

And knowed he would keep his word. 
And, sure 's you *re born, they all got oflE 

Afore the smokestacks fell, 
And Bludso's ghost went up alone 

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. 

He were n't no saint but at jedgment 

I 'd run my chance with Jim, 
'Longside of some pious gentleman 

That would n't a-shook hands with him. ' " 

" Mary, " I said, reproachfully, " I think poetry before 
breakfast is unbearable." 

She said, "It is n't before breakfast ; here is a cup of 
coffee I 've brought you with my own fair" hands. It 
will put you in a good humour at once. " 

"I remember," I said, "that my father was once 
blown up in a Mississippi steamboat, just about here at 
Natchez. There is a legend in the family that he ow^ed 
his transparent colour to the accident. His skin before 
that was somewhat dark and sallow, but after he had 
been scalded and parboiled, it all peeled off and he came 
out with a beautiful pink and white complexion. Not 
only that, but he was a hero, having pushed a woman 
and her little boy into his place in the lifeboat ; therefore 
he shared the fate of the captain and the sailors when 
the boat was blown up. He said the last recollection he 
had of anything was of a Methodist clergyman rushing 
up and down the deck with his child in his arms, scream- 
ing, ' O God, save me and my little boy ! O God, save 
me and my Httle boy!' As to the fate of the other 
little boys and the people on the boat he was supremely 



The Mississippi River 279 

indifferent, if God would only save him and his little 
boy. My father was fished up out of the river in an 
insensible condition, terribly burned, and carried to 
shore, where he was nursed in kindly fashion for weeks 
by the family of a planter. Except for one or two scars 
on his beautiful hands there was nothing to tell of the 
disaster." 

Natchez was before the war one of the richest places 
on the Mississippi, and it is certain in time to recover 
its prosperity. There is no place on the river with 
more beautiful natural advantages. The high bluffs 
slope sharply down to the broad and impressive water 
and there are any number of splendid ante-bellum 
houses that speak of its former riches and import- 
ance. For that reason, probably, WiUiam Edward 
West settled here as a portrait painter. He was 
the artist who afterwards painted Byron in his "sky- 
blue bombazine and Camelot frock coat," and the 
Countess Guiccioli, with her romantic appearance and 
hair of deep auburn colour, flowing over her shoulders 
in profuse ringlets. He also painted Rebecca Gratz, 
the original of "Ivanhoe," Washington Irving having 
inspired Sir Walter to this romance by his praise of the 
young American Jewish girl who had parted from her 
adored Christian lover rather than give up the faith of 
her fathers. Another of West's delightful portraits 
was one of IN.Irs. Hemans, and he painted the genial, 
kindly Washington Irving, with a slight cast in his eye, 
which he undoubtedly had, for West was true to Hfc. 
Among the numerous portraits of famous persons left 
by him, the chef d'osuvre is that of Shelley. This, 
painted after years o serious study abroad, was in 
Richmond, but I scarcely expected to see it. 

Those old planters in Natchez travelled and knew 



28o My Beloved South 

something of art. They saw the talent of West, but 
also that he could not draw, and his portrait of Doctor 
Brown sent him to that fount of all inspiration, Italy, 
where he became not only a good draughtsman but 
mastered his art. 

An ante-bellum home in Natchez of special note is 
that of Mrs. Benneville Rhodes. It was built by her 
great-grandmother and the architecture is of the 
simplest but is also the most satisfying and best. The 
hall, probably forty feet long, and proportionately 
broad, runs the whole length of the house. On one 
side of it is the drawing-room. The walls are covered 
with old-fashioned white and gold French paper. The 
enormous windows are curtained with dull yellow bro- 
cade, the velvet carpet has a white ground with a 
design of amber and old rose, and the furniture is of 
carved rosewood, so beloved in the old South. The 
room, wisely left to its own dignity, is not overcrowded 
in the modern fashion by little fancy objects having no 
relation to the period of the furniture, and the result 
is a sense of peace and repose. Across the hall is a 
music-room, the great dining-room, the library, and, 
in Southern fashion, an unusually wide gallery runs 
from one end of the house to the other. The house 
although standing in the town of Natchez is set in a 
beautiful park of sixty-five acres, wooded with splen- 
did specimens of giant live-oaks, softly draped with 
pennants of moss. The garden contains a miniature 
copy of the Maze at Hampton Court, and is sweet 
with myriads of roses and all the old-fashioned flowers. 

The family who inhabit this beautiful old place 
complete the picture. The eldest daughter, with her 
satin complexion, regular features, and fair shining hair 
worn back from her white forehead cL la pompadour, is 



The Mississippi River 281 

like nothing so much as an exquisite Dresden statuette. 
The youngest daughter, with dark hair, well-marked 
eyebrows, brilliant dark eyes, dressed in simple white 
muslin, blue sash, white stockings, and the tiniest of 
black velvet slippers, looked as if a modest heroine of 
Jane Austen's had stepped out of one of the old English 
portraits hanging in the hospitable hall. 

This was not Jim Bludso's Natchez-under-the-hill 
but a very aristocratic, fine flavoured, Natchez-over- 
the-hill. In our drive about the lovely old town, Mr. 
Rhodes directed my attention to the magnificent view 
beyond the river, the bluish hills in the extreme dis- 
tance, and one or two softly wooded islands, surrounded 
by the pink haze of a perfect sunset. He said, "Now 
and then I throw off the fetters of civilisation and 
that is where I go hunting and fishing. There is an 
occasional bear to be found, with deer, hares, ducks, and 
plenty of birds and wild turkeys. And nothing so 
rests my spirit and puts me in such good temper as a 
solitary two weeks' hunt, for in every American there 
is a trace of the Indian hunter. " 

A little " toot " reminded us that the train was coming 
and we wended our way to the station. " Don't forget," 
said Mr. Rhodes, as I got into the train, "that you 
promised to send those English broad beans. I want 
to see what I can do with them in the South. " 

I replied, "I '11 remember. I 'm Old Reliable. But 
don't you forget to give them plenty of water, for 
everything grown in England is accustomed to hu- 
midity. " 

I have sent the beans, and am some day to know how 
they like American soil. 



CHAPTER XIX 

HARRIS DICKSON 

Of friendship one can never lightly speak; 

It is the eye of Heaven to the soul; 
Without it life were pitiless and bleak, 

And wanton self in us lost to control. 

O friend, be thou my mirror, and advise 

How best my soul may please thy watchful eyes. 

Lilian Street. 

THERE has never been a country in the whole world 
where the flower of friendship has blossomed so 
luxuriantly, or breathed such a sweet perfume as in the 
South. The whole conditions of life have lent them- 
selves to the growth of this grateful and blessed plant. 
Before the war, the opulent hospitality, the many 
servants, the rigid line drawn between the upper and 
the lower classes led to constant intermarriage be- 
tween the old families, and to an intimacy so close as 
virtually to establish a kinship. Then came those 
terrible years of bloodshed that prostrated and impov- 
erished the entire land, but they brought out the 
tenderness, loyalty, inborn pride, and endurance of the 
Southern character. Through all the darkened atmo- 
sphere burned a clear white flame, as strong and pure 
and steady as though lighted by the hand of a saint on a 
holy altar — the light of friendship. There was no 

282 



Harris Dickson 283 

luxurious comfort or material benefit now, only self- 
sacrifice, unspoken tenderness, and sympathy silently 
expressed — ^words would have brought tears, and for a 
proud heart and soul a covering is necessary. So, poor 
and weary and sad and broken, the South was still 
richer in love than any other country. War had de- 
vastated the land ; the flowers in the garden were dead ; 
but the flower of friendship, watered by long years of 
blood and tears, bloomed brighter than ever, for senti- 
ment is indestructible. And to-day, nearly half a 
century since the war, this tender plant still blooms 
hardily and tropically in the South. The thick leaves 
rustle and move to announce the coming of this rich 
blossom of the heart. 

When in Vicksburg I met Harris Dickson for the 
first time, and the flower of friendship quickly bloomed 
for us. Perhaps an aid to our rapid understanding was 
his relief in finding that I did not answer to the de- 
scription given him by a passenger who had crossed on 
the steamer with a namesake of mine. She described 
me as a "lady who wore a green satin dress, gave 
lectures on the Celtic language, and was surrounded by 
admirers of the opposite sex." Harris Dickson found me 
wearing a reliable English blue serge, surrounded by 
solitude, very eager to listen, — to learn and not to 
lecture. After some days he asked me what I thought 
was a peculiar question. 

"Have you a green satin dress?" 

"No," I said, "but if you Hke a green satin dress I 
can get one." 

"And," he asked, "do you lecture on the Celtic 
language?" 

' 'I lecture on nothing," I said, "and the only thing I 
know on the subject is that when George Moore was 



284 My Beloved South 

temporarily an enthusiastic Irishman he issued an edict 
to his sister-in-law for his two nephews to learn the 
Celtic language under pain of disinheritance. " 

"Then, " said he, "you were not the lady who crossed 
the Atlantic in a green satin dress, delivered a lecture 
on Celtic lore, and was vastly admired by my sex?" 

" No, " I said, "I have no lore. I know too much for 
the professional charmer, too little for the intellectual 
man, and nothing for the politician, so my friends 
among your exacting sex are few. " 

' ' Then where, ' ' he said, " do I come in ? " 

"You," I said, "are already in, through the open 
door of the South. " 

We talked together for two days, almost without 
ceasing. I told him of my temerity in writing a book 
about the South. 

"My only equipment is twenty-five years of home- 
sickness," I explained. 

He looked kind and encouraging. "Well, never 
mind," he said. "Your equipment might be worse. 
Write the book; have it typed with wide margins; send 
it here and I will look it over and give you any sugges- 
tions that occur to me. " 

"Do you mean to say, " I asked, " that you are going 
to edit my book?" 

He smiled. "That's what it looks like," he an- 
swered. And the bud of the flower of friendship burst 
into grateful blossom. Why should a busy, talented 
writer offer to take such infinite trouble? Because he 
recognised in me a woman of the old South, the South 
of appeal, of helplessness, while he is a man of the 
young South, the South of helpfulness, of progress, 
and still, thank Heaven, of impulsive generosity. 

While we walked about historic Vicksburg he said, 



Harris Dickson 285 

"Would you like to see the old quarters where I began 
my career as a very youthful stenographer of twelve?" 

I said, "Certainly I should, and I am sure you were 
quite a decent stenographer, even at that age. " 

"Well, if I hadn't been," he said, "they would 
have turned me down. " 

"How I envy you people versed in stenography," I 
said. "It is one of the most useful things in the world 
for every writer, every journalist, and every thinker. 
The mind receives no better drilling than the study of 
shorthand. It is woman's best friend, and it is no less 
useful to man." 

"You speak," he said, "like a sage in a copy-book. " 

In the meantime we had arrived at the Court- House, 
and as the court was not sitting we could wander over 
it at our own sweet will. The old janitor was at the door. 
Harris Dickson said, "You must stop and speak to him ; 
he is one of the best-mannered gentlemen in the town. " 

The Court-House is a fine classical building, and it 
had the quiet and restfulness about it of concentrated 
thought, and moreover there was the delightful odour of 
books and papers that I remember as a little girl, for I 
drove to court every morning with my father, who very 
often took me into one of the court-rooms for a few 
moments before he kissed me good-bye and sent me 
home with my mammy. 

My father had the same passionate tenderness for me 
that George III gave to his little daughter, the Princess 
Amelia, and like her 

Unthinking, idle, wild and young, 

I laughed and danced and talked and sang, 

And proud of health, of freedom vain. 

Concluding in those hours of glee 

That all the world was made for me. 



286 My Beloved South 

Amelia died young, the world was not made for her. 
Nor was it made for me, as I was soon to find out, 
through the severe and continual discipline of my step- 
mother, Fate. But even she cannot rob me of memory, 
and every trifle connected with my father is inexpress- 
ibly dear to me, and so I have an affection for all the 
old court-houses. 

"Don't you want," said Harris Dickson, "to see the 
pictures on the walls? There is one of Sergeant 
Prentiss. " 

" Mr. Prentiss? " I said. " Why, my father knew him 
well." And I quickly climbed on a chair to get a 
better view of the fine, lean face, with the wonderful, 
penetrating, spiritual eyes and the aquiline nose. 

"Do you remember," I said, "the description of him 
by Henry Wise of Virginia? ' His eyes were set deep in 
his head, large, clear, full of animation and hidden fires. 
When looked into, they returned the glance, which, like 
that of Lara, "dared you to forget. " ' " 

" Yes, " he said, " and even after half a century, in this 
dim old portrait those eyes still 'dare you to forget.'" 

I remember quite well my father reading me, for he 
was himself a man of peace and sweet reason, Prentiss's 
" Eulogy on Lafayette," in which he said : " Napoleon was 
the bright fiery comet, shooting wildly through realms 
of space, scattering terror and pestilence among nations ; 
while Lafayette was a pure and brilliant planet beneath 
whose grateful beams the mariner directs his barque 
and the shepherd tends his flocks. Napoleon died, and 
a few of the old warriors of Marengo and Austerlitz 
bewailed their chief; Lafayette died, and the tears of the 
whole civilised world attested the mourning for his 
loss." 

"Perhaps," said Harris Dickson, "you remember his 



Harris Dickson 287 

famous address in New Orleans in 1847 on behalf of the 
Irish, asking for money for the famine? He said, 
' Freely have your hearts and your purses opened here- 
tofore to the call of struggling humanity ; nobly did you 
respond to oppressed Greece and suffering Poland. 
Within Erin's borders is an enemy more cruel than the 
Turk, more tyrannical than the Russian. Bread is the 
only weapon that can conquer that enemy. Send 
bread, load your ships with this glorious ammunition, 
and wage war against this despot — Famine. Let us, 
in Christ's name, cast our bread upon the waters.' " 

"He possessed," I replied, "the eloquent oratory of 
the South. He was a true Southerner, and never forgot 
how Mississippi opened her arms and welcomed him 
when he arrived, an unknown young lawyer. His 
character was so complex I wonder no one has made him 
the hero of a novel. Henry Wise said of him, 'Every 
trait of his noble mind was in excess. His very virtues 
leaned to faults, and his faults themselves were virtues, 
so combined was he of all sorts of contradictions, with- 
out one characteristic which did not contradict and 
charm. He was naturally a spendthrift, yet of sound 
judgment and great discretion. He had the least 
charity for any kind of baseness and meanness, and the 
greatest charity for the unceasing weakness of human 
nature. He was learned in classical lore, and not a 
pedant. He was brave to foolhardiness, but would 
not hurt a flower. ' What a fascinating combination ! 
What a psychological study!" 

"And now," said Harris Dickson, "that we have 
exhausted the Court-House, what about a look at the 
Military Park?" 

We talked of other things on our way there, and I was 
unprepared for the splendid commemoration of that 



288 My Beloved South 

long and bloody siege of three months, when in 1863, in 
the very sight and sound of home, the Confederate 
army fought every inch of ground with wonderful 
precision and prowess, making a heroic and brilliant 
defence until, undermined by saps and outlying ap- 
proaches, they were gradually folded in the vise-like 
and deadly embrace of the Federal artillery until every 
man had to choose between death and surrender. 

For sixty days and upwards 

A storm of shell and shot 
Rained round us in a flaming shower, 

But still we faltered not. 
' If the noble city perish, ' 

Our brave young leader said, 
'Let the only walls the foe shall scale 

Be the ramparts of the dead!' 

For sixty days and upwards 

The eye of Heaven waxed dim; 
And e'en throughout God's holy morn 

O'er Christian prayer and hymn 
Arose a hissing tumult. 

As if the fiends in air 
Strove to engulf the voice of faith 

In the shrieks of their despair. 

What an indescribable thrill of emotion this battle- 
ground, once dyed with blood, gave me, in spite of the 
beauty of its soft, misty valleys and high green hills 
overlooking the wide brown waters of the Yazoo and the 
Mississippi. If war is man's inevitable lot, as Homer 
Lea says it is, then this site, with its natural redoubts 
and fortifications, its strategic location for cannon, its 
unexpected windings and safeguarded retreats, was 
made for war. There are now one hundred and twenty- 



Harris Dickson 289 

seven guns in the Park, sixty-five of them Union and 
sixty-two Confederate guns, a hundred and fourteen 
field guns on light carriages and thirteen heavy guns on 
siege carriages, the replica of those used during the 
defence. There are eight hundred and ninety-six 
tablets each giving an account of the siege from one 
side or the other, with the number of killed, wounded, 
and saddest of all, missing. Many white stones are 
scattered S.bout, each one marking the position occupied 
by one thousand men. There are splendid monuments, 
marble shafts, columns, and statues of the different 
Confederate and Federal generals. When the Park is 
finished each brigade, division, and corps commander — 
Confederate or Union officer — will be placed in the line 
of his command during the siege and defence. The 
siege then will be set in such order that a child will 
understand it. 

When the twilight fell it was easy to imagine the 
lines of grey mist were the Confederate troops, while the 
long blue shadows moving steadily against them were 
the Union army. There never was more desperate 
fighting than on this battlefield. Mississippi lads, 
young boys of fifteen and sixteen, would look towards 
Vicksburg, almost within the sound of their mothers' 
voices, and ask, when mortally wounded, to be carried 
back to the trenches, where they could die fighting. 
One boy of sixteen lost both legs below the knee by a 
shell. After the blood was staunched he begged for a 
trench and a gun, and fought on, and still he fought — 
until a merciful bullet pierced his gallant heart. 

Even in the midst of carnage there were some grimly 
amusing incidents. General Grant says in his Memoirs: 

On the 25th of June at three o'clock, all being ready, the 
19 



290 My Beloved South 

mine was exploded. A heavy artillery fire all along the 
line had been ordered to open with the explosion. The 
effect was to blow the top of the hill off and make a crater 
where it stood. The breach was not sufficient to enable us 
to pass a column of attack through; in fact the enemy, 
having failed to reach our mine, had thrown up a line 
farther back, where most of the men guarding that point 
were placed. There were a few men, however, left at the 
advance line, and others working in the countermine, which 
was still being pushed to find ours. All that were there 
v/ere thrown into the air, some of them coming down on our 
side still alive. I remember one coloured man, who had 
been underground at work when the explosion took place, 
w^ho was thrown to our side. He was not much hurt, but 
terribly frightened. Some one asked him how high he had 
gone up, " Dunno, massa, but t'ink 'bout three mile," was 
his reply. General Logan commanded at this point and 
took this coloured man to his quarters, where he did service 
to the end of the siege. 

And while the soldiers fought on land, the sailors 
cannonaded from the water. The very air was black 
with smoke, shells whistled, rushed, and exploded in the 
air, sending pieces of iron like javelins to deal death 
wherever they found the mark. The clank of the 
artillery's ceaseless slow move, the loud roar of cannon, 
the scream of the coehorns from the barges, and the 
sudden explosion of the shells, made such a diabolical 
noise that many men became temporarily deaf. There 
are one thousand two hundred and eighty-eight acres 
of ground, and almost every foot of these thirty miles of 
land has at one time or another been wet with blood. 
For it was the fighting line of a three months', long 
drawn out, ragged, intermittent, desperate battle. 
And if it had not been for the steady, cool, persistent, 



Harris Dickson 291 

dogged courage of General Grant the siege would have 
lasted longer even than sixty days. Day and night he 
worked his army, digging saps, toiling in the trenches, 
marching corps after corps of cavalry, infantry, and 
artillery towards that superhumanly invincible, steady 
grey line, until they planted their colour staffs on more 
than one Confederate redoubt. His kind and noble 
heart must have suffered to see the Confederate soldiers 
who fought, many of them young boys, but they died like 
men, with their faces turned towards Vicksburg. Their 
battle was fought at home, there was no need to fire these 
young hearts with " I live and die in Dixie. " They had 
lived in it all their lives, and the most glorious of all 
deaths was to die for it. 

Vicksburg the town suffered horribly, too, with gun- 
boats at her side, their guns pointing towards her very 
heart, the coehorns in the barges screaming until her 
brain was paralised, shells bursting everywhere, making 
holes in the sides of houses, burning others to the 
ground. It was, indeed, a pitiful town on the day of the 
final surrender. 

"Come up here and see this fort," said Harris Dick- 
son; "there is a legend that it has been a fortified posi- 
tion under six flags. First, it was an Indian fort. The 
French took it from them, and ceded it to the Spaniards ; 
then the Spaniards ceded it again to France. Later it 
became a fort of the British empire, then a fort of the 
Thirteen Colonies, as it was the western edge at that 
time of the colony of Georgia. The Confederates 
fortified the place, and after the surrender of Pem- 
berton the Stars and Stripes once more floated over 
it. 

"I^ok, " I said, "what lovely anemones are growing 
here ; they are a purple red. " 



292 My Beloved South 

"Yes," said Hams Dickson, 

" * I sometimes think that never blooms so red 
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled. ' " 

We walked higher up the hill towards the Illinois 
memorial, a splendid dome of pure marble with a long 
flight of steps at the entrance. The inner wall is lined 
with tablets of bronze bearing the names of thirty-five 
thousand soldiers from the State of Illinois who took 
part in the campaign and siege of Vicksburg. As we 
stood inside the dome two old men slowly entered, poor 
and shabby, evidently failures in life; but they were 
once young and heroes on this field, for slowly and 
hesitatingly they traced with toil-worn fingers long 
columns of names until they found their own. In all 
else they had fallen short, but they were on the roll-call 
of glory! It saddened us to see them, they so embodied 
the relentlessness of Fate. 

We got out into the fresh air and walked to the monu- 
ment of the State of Wisconsin. It is a tall marble 
shaft, surmounted by a splendid war eagle, his wings not 
outstretched but folded close against his body. He sits 
sternly brooding, with his fierce head in clear profile. 
The First Wisconsin regiment carried an eagle all 
through the war. He often perched on the colour staff, 
and was such a very intrepid and manly bird that they 
called him after President Lincoln "Old Abe." But 
when he returned after the disbandment of the troops to 
Wisconsin and was comfortably housed, fed, and placed 
in a cage with other eagles, he promptly laid a nestful of 
eggs and unblushingly hatched them out like any ordin- 
ary mother. The eagle was only a vivandiere after all, 
but a clever one to deceive a regiment by her brave 
daring and masculine courage, and she is not the only 



Harris Dickson 293 

female who has fought through an entire war without 
her sex being discovered. 

The first monument erected in the Park by the State 
of Massachusetts was conceived and executed by a 
woman, Mrs. H. H. Kitson, and is perhaps the most 
beautiful of them all. On a large natural boulder a 
young, tall, vigorous soldier in undress uniform, 
peaked cap, and musket carried carelessly over his 
shoulder, steps buoyantly along, with a long free stride, 
showing the young sap and splendid joy of life. His 
open, candid, boyish face looks like that of a moun- 
taineer, and the tilt of his head is brave and confident. 
It is an attractive figure, so full of movement and 
vitality that it brings the horror of war and death 
tragically before you. 

The setting sun had turned the brown water of the 
Mississippi River to a wide lake of gold, the green, 
rolling hills and beautiful purple valle^^s were sending 
out sweet, thin scents of early spring, as we walked 
home. Harris Dickson's house is ideally situated on 
the edge of this beautiful Park, and we found Mrs. 
Dickson, his mother, waiting for us. She is a remark- 
able woman, and her son inherits much of his talent, and 
certainly his great heart, from her. She is full of love, 
the love of the mother — above all of the mother and of 
Home; the love of heroes, of poor folks, of friends and 
neighbours, and of all the little womanly things of life. 

She said to me, "After the war we were very poor, 
but I have never been too poor for flowers, for friends, 
and for books." And what a prodigious memory is 
hers! She is an encyclopaedia of Thackeray, and is 
familiar with every character in Dickens. 

"If I went to England," she said, "I wouldn't go 
first to Westminster Abbey, but would wander out 



294 My Beloved South 

alone to see Dickens' London, to commune in spirit 
with all the friends he gave me and that I have loved so 
well. I would like to see the places where they have 
lived and loved and suffered and rejoiced and died. 
Ah, poor Lady Dedlock!" 

"Bleak House, " I said, "I know well and have read a 
score of times, for my father fell so in love with Lady 
Dedlock's daughter that he begged my mother to call 
me Esther Summerson after her. But my mother's 
beloved sister, my aunt Elizabeth Beale, had given her 
only daughter, Marcia, my mother's name, and instead 
of Esther I was named Elizabeth after my aunt." 

"Do you know Dickens' London?" asked Mrs. 
Dickson. 

" No, " I said, " I am ashamed to say I don't. " 

"When you return to England, " she asked, "will you 
go for me into Buckingham Street, where David Copper- 
field ' settled himself in a suite of rooms including a little 
half -blind entry where you could see hardly anything; a 
little stone-blind pantry, where you could see nothing at 
all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom'? And then go and 
see the Marshalsea, where little Dorrit was born. " 

I said, " I have walked under the beautiful old arches 
of the Temple where Tom Pinch worked for a mysteri- 
ous employer, and I 've seen 'Fountain Court all 
dappled in the spring's sunlight,' where Ruth Pinch 
used to meet her brother every day on his way home 
from work, and where one day John Westlock was 
passing too, and I 've often been in the Paper Building 
where Mr. Chester had chambers." 

"That, " said Mrs. Dickson, " is where Sydney Carton 
went after the trial of Darnay. I have just read A 
Tale of Two Cities for the twentieth time ; it is a terrible 
and graphic picture of the Reign of Terror in France, 



Harris Dickson 295 

and a tender and touching story of the self-sacrifice of 
Sydney Carton — ' Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friends. ' But so 
many of my friends lived in London — the impecunious 
Micawber, poor Barnaby Rudge, Little Nell and her 
grandfather, Miss Flite, who went about with her bag of 
papers and only lived for the celebrated case of Jarndyce 
V. Jarndyce. And you must find for me the site of the 
Old Maypole inn, which a century ago was twelve miles 
from London. Perhaps the village gossips meet there 
still and tell tales of the neighbouring gentry over their 
tankards of ale." 

I always think that it is n't reading so much that 
matters, it is remembering. All her life Mrs. Dickson 
has been doing both. Living in Vicksburg and scarcely 
ever out of it, she has journeyed the world over in 
books of travel and is a woman of wide interests and 
cultivation. 

The night was cool, we had a little crackling wood fire, 
and Harris Dickson, in his charming voice, and in the 
negro dialect I love so well, read me the first of "Old 
Reliable's Busy Days," one of his many perfect pictures 
of the utterly inconsequent life of the negro evolved 
by freedom. 

"And is there," I asked, as the reading ended, "an 
Old Reliable in the flesh?" 

"Yes," said Harris Dickson. "There is. He's a 
discovery of my wife's. Her description of him was so 
graphic it gave me the inspiration. " 

"His experiences," I asked, "what of them?" 

"They, of course, are purely imaginary," he said. 

"But quite possible," I said, "and indigenous to the 
South. Zack Foster is a word portrait of the present- 
day negro, lazy, irresponsible, untrustworthy, with no 



296 My Beloved South 

sense of duty, and yet amusing and forgivable. Where 
is it all going to end? " 

"Ah, where indeed?" said my kind host; "and that 
knotty problem cannot be solved to-night. " 

I had completely forgotten the hour in my great 
enjoyment of the reading. I said good-night, and, while 
I slept, dreamt of Old Reliable knocking at my door and 
saying, "Colonel Spottiswoode is downstairs to see you. 
He say you 's his own blood kin," and I awoke, sorry 
to find it only a dream. 

I love Old Reliable, and can perfectly understand his 
day of unexpected vagaries. Later in the spring when 
I went to New York, to make myself keep an important 
engagement in Washington, as well as to save an honest 
penny, I bought a return ticket. My last day of grace, 
I lunched with Sally Nixon and stayed a week. Of 
course I had a powerful inducement — Sally, like Little 
Boy Blue, has only to blow her horn, and I would fol- 
low her to the ends of the earth, for she is a constant, 
clear, joyous, bubbling, healing spring of wit. When I 
am with her I laugh and eat, and under that hospitable 
roof I even sleep. What a mine of wealth she has been 
to her husband, the most tactful of wives, the most 
inspiring of comrades. 

In my experience and observation of hostesses both 
in America and in Europe Sally is without a peer. She 
literally has every qualification for this role. She is 
joyously pleased to see people, unlike a certain lady in 
England whom her cousin described as not wanting to 
give a party and not one of the guests wanting to come 
to the party. Sally, on the contrary, enjoys her parties. 
She is cordial, agreeable, perfectly at ease, but with 
eyes that survey at a glance her entire dinner table, or 
drawing-room, and no one is ever neglected or ill at 



Harris Dickson 297 

ease for one moment. A pretentious woman said, "Mrs. 
Nixon, I see you introduce your guests; you know it 
is n't done now." 

"Indeed?" said Sally. "My manners were taught 
me by my grandmother, an old-fashioned Southern 
lady of excellent taste." The grandmother of the 
monitor was a person whom she wished most earnestly 
to forget. 

Her mind is as quick as a flash and she is gifted with 
the clear-eyed wisdom of the true humourist. I said to 
her, " Lewis is certainly a model husband, Sally. " 

" Yes, " she said, "but then you see I 'm the wife who 
has never said 'no.' Think of it, Bessie, I 've never 
said ' no ' to Lewis since we 've been married. I 've 
thought it, and I 've meant it, but I 've never once 
said it. There is something about men that rises up 
in rebellion at a wife's 'no.' If Lewis said to me to- 
night ' We will start to-morrow for Paraguay' (wherever 
that delectable land may be), I should instantly say 

* yes. ' You see, with ' yes, ' so many things can happen. 
There might not be a boat to Paraguay, Lewis might be 
taken ill in the middle of the night with influenza, the 
papers might announce in the morning an insurrection 
in Paraguay, or an earthquake might have swallowed 
the entire country, or, what is quite possible, Lewis 
could change his mind. In fact it is always safe to 
say 'yes' to a man. I can always say 'yes' in a hun- 
dred different ways — the spontaneous 'yes' when I 
mean it ; the temporising ' yes, ' when I must have time 
to think things over; the soothing 'yes' when I mean 

* No, indeed, not if I know it. ' Every wise woman when 
she gets married should cut the word 'no' out of her 
vocabulary. You can say 'no' occasionally to a lover, 
but never to a husband. " 



298 My Beloved South 

I said at lunch, "You will forgive my hurrying away, 
but at two o'clock I have an appointment. " 

Sally's kind blue eyes looked intensely amused. 

" I have, " she said, helping me to broiled lobster, "a 
little programme for you. " (Sally is a splendid house- 
keeper. Her staff expresses in a marvellous manner 
"the unity of nations," for she has a negro cook, an 
Italian kitchen boy, a Japanese butler and footman, a 
French lady's maid, an Irish housemaid, and yet, 
strange to relate, harmony exists in her household.) 

"The butler," continued Sally, "will telephone and 
put off your engagement. The motor will be at the 
door in five minutes; we will go to your friends, the 
Wassermans, " (I was staying at the time with my 
beautiful friend Renee) ; "I will wait at the door while 
you pack your trunk; the footman will put it in the 
motor and we will leave it here on our way to the railway 
station, where your return ticket will be deposited and 
changed for one of later date. We will then drive in the 
Park and take tea at the Plaza, where you will see all 
the pretty ladies in their smart clothes. And you will 
stay with me for a week, if not longer. " 

All of which programme I carried out to the letter. 

The night before I left New York, John Savage called 
me up on the telephone and said, "Are you really going 
to-morrow or, like Old ReHable, have you got another 
job on hand?" 

I did go next day. Sally came to my room to say 
good-bye, carrying a rose-flowered bandbox, the kind 
affected in musical comedy when the humble but lovely 
miUiner, in an exquisitely fitting black gown, costing at 
the least, in its fetching simplicity, one hundred and 
fifty dollars, arrives to try a hat on the haughty beauty. 
The audience have no anxiety ; they know that the neat 



Harris Dickson 299 

black dress and the song, with the bandbox suspended 
to her arm by a ribbon, will win the manly tenor. 

Sally said, "I bought a black and white hat yesterday 
that looked just like you — take it with my love, and 
hurry, for you are late. " 

The bandbox did not go so far as to give me a tenor, 
but it did lead to my acquaintance with a keen-eyed, 
clever young surgeon. Dr. Kenneth Kellogg. That, 
however, is another story. The hat, light as a feather, 
pleasant to wear, was, like Sally, a joy through all the 
summer, and if Fate will be as kind to me, her Old 
Reliable, as Harris Dickson is to his Old Reliable in 
happily extricating him, sooner or later, from his 
difficulties, then I may expect, after all, a happy ending 
to my sad story. 



CHAPTER XX 

A PRESENT-DAY PLANTATION 

" T THINK it would be a good plan for you, " said 

1 Harris Dickson a few days later, "to go to Atlanta 
and join a car there which is taking a delegation from 
the Agricultural Department through the country. It 
will be a splendid opportunity for you to see the fine 
work they are doing. " 

" But, " I said, "Atlanta is sixteen hours at least from 
Vicksburg. They have n't invited me to go with them ; 
they don't even know of my existence!" 

" Oh, " he said airily, " they have asked me, and I will 
appoint you as a delegate in my place. They will be 
delighted to receive you. The cars stop wherever they 
are needed and the farmers bring up sick horses, cows, 
sheep, mules, pigs, and even chickens and ducks for a 
diagnosis. You will see all the methods of this splendid 
department of the Government which is rendering such 
a practical service to the farmer, gardener, shepherd, 
ranchman, the breeder of race horses, and the seeds- 
man." 

I said, "Senator Morgan of Alabama used to tell a 
story against himself about seed. He had been for 
many years one of the most honoured men in the Senate, 
helping, encouraging, uplifting the South, winning back 
the confidence and the admiration of the North, work- 

300 



A Present-Day Plantation 301 

ing night and day at the knottiest of political problems, 
never sparing himself in the service of his State and his 
country. One day he received a brief letter from a 
farmer headed: 

'"Black Jack Farm near Mobile. 

'"Senator Morgan, Seedsman: 

" ' I live in your State in Alabama. I am a gardener and 
will be obliged if you will send me from the Agricultural 
Department any and all seeds that will grow in this country. 

'"Faithfully, 

'"J.Carter.' 

"Senator Morgan said, 'At last, after many years, I 
know what I am. I thought I was a statesman ; I find I 
am only a seedsman.' " 

Harris Dickson said, "The Bible says, 'the seed is 
the word of God,' and seed can be an important factor 
in life, let me tell you. I know a Member of Congress 
whose sole claim to office is that he sends out seeds 
quite regularly. You had better go to Georgia and 
join those gifted seedsmen of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment." 

"No," I said, "in spite of the possible hospitaHty 
which might be extended to me, the journey of sixteen 
hours is too long. Remember, I am not accustomed to 
the vast distances of my country as yet." 

"Then," he said, "the next best thing for you is to 
pay a visit to Alfred Holt Stone at Dunleith. He is a 
Southern man who has written an excellent book on the 
American race problem, and he knows as much about 
the South as anybody in it. " 

So he called up on the long-distance telephone and 
confident of Southern hospitality informed the gentle- 



302 My Beloved South 

man that he was to expect a visitor. Mr. Stone was 
equal to the occasion and said he and Mrs. Stone would 
be delighted to receive me. 

The next day I started for Dunleith, rather in a state 
of anxie.y, for a plantation in the South even in these 
days can be primitive and uncomfortable, and there is a 
theory that literary people are never good managers or 
housekeepers. Mr. Stone met me at the station and 
dispelled all my fears at once. The buggy, a reminder 
of my childhood, was in perfect trim, and Charles (I 
subsequently learned his name) , a shining, highly curried, 
well fed, knowledgeable grey horse, waited while his 
owner, a young, well-groomed man, with a resolute, 
Napoleonic face, gave me a warm hand of welcome. 

"And now," he said, "you are to stay on the planta- 
tion just as long as you like it. Mrs. Stone is delighted 
at the prospect of a visitor and Dickson told me over 
the telephone that we should have much to say to each 
other." 

When we got into the buggy Charles made good time 
in going homewards. How agreeably the plantation 
surprised me. There are 3500 acres under cultivation, 
planted in cotton and a modicum of alfalfa. There are 
about two hundred and fifty or three hundred negroes 
on the place, and a small colony of Italians. The little 
whitewashed houses range from two to four rooms, the 
fences are neat and trim, and there is a look of alert, 
intelligent, brisk, up-to-date management and continu- 
ous progress over every acre and every foot of the 
plantation. I found Mrs. Stone charming, and not 
only a model housekeeper but a most intelligent hostess. 
The house was originally an old-fashioned plantation 
house, but it has been greatly changed and improved. 
It has now several bathrooms with hot and cold water, 



A Present-Day Plantation 303 

acetylene gas, wide galleries surrounding it, and two 
libraries, one of them Mr. Stone's own particular work- 
room, while the second, containing an excellent selection 
of books, is the reading-room of the family. The walls 
are panelled in odorous pine and my room was the most 
charming one I occupied in America. The light maple 
furniture was the colour of the pine walls ; there was an 
apple-green carpet on the floor, and all the little appoint- 
ments of the room were lavender and green, giving a 
sense of coolness and freshness. The drawers of my 
dressing-table held large sachets of lavender; my bed 
was most luxurious, with an eiderdown quilt flowered in 
lilacs; the bathroom, with its tiled floor, white porcelain 
bath-tub and wash-basin, was, like so many American 
bathrooms, a pearl to be remembered. I went to bed 
early and laid me down with a thankful heart in a 
beautiful silence. Oh, that blissful silence! so deep that 
it penetrated my restless heart, wrapped me in a mantle 
of velvet peace, and gave me a night of childhood's 
unmoving sleep. 

Mrs. Stone is a great believer in the Agricultural 
Department. She has raised three hundred agricul- 
tural chickens who abode not so very far from my 
window, and yet they never disturbed me, for they were 
well organised, calm, and collected birds. When the 
hens laid in the morning they gave a full-throated 
cackle to announce the egg ; the rooster made a careless 
comment on it, and there the matter ended. They 
were so different from my brother Sam's next-door 
neighbour's chickens at Chevy Chase — the hens when- 
ever they laid an egg went into loud, wild hysterics, 
while the rooster, too, seemed to be utterly unnerved 
and loudly astonished by the event. 

So I have been advocating ever since I left the 



304 My Beloved South 

Stone plantation, that all who raise chickens send for 
pamphlets from the Agricultural Department and go 
exactly according to their directions. Even the roosters 
on the Stone plantation exercised judgment in their 
announcement of the dawn; at three o'clock in the 
morning they gave one soft crow in unison and then 
settled down to a well-bred silence; — not, as in other 
unscientific chicken yards, a faint crow at a quarter 
past three from a timid young bantam, followed five 
minutes later by the clarion call from a confident middle- 
aged rooster, and followed by hesitating echoes in differ- 
ent keys from other cocks until a quarter past four — an 
agonising hour of steady, unmusical, separated, trying, 
intermittent cock-a-doodle-doos. 

I never ate canned peaches and fruits with such a 
fine flavour as those Mrs. Stone prepared herself, also 
according to the bulletins of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment. After a delicious, well-served lunch, when I went 
to my dainty green-and-purple bedroom the little black 
maid had unpacked my bag and everything was put 
neatly in place. We had already had driven around 
the plantation but Charles was put into requisition 
again and we went over to see the Italian settlement. 
It is on the edge of a thick, primeval forest. A strap- 
ping, black-eyed girl with broad shoulders, dressed 
in a stout linen blouse, a black skirt well pinned up 
over a heavy red wool petticoat, was ploughing with 
a strong, grey mule. She smiled benignly upon us as 
we approached and said "Good-morning." Then she 
headed her mule in another direction so we had no 
conversation with her. Mr. Stone speaks of the Italians 
as sober, steady, excellent tenants, doing twice the 
work of negroes, but they hoard the money they make, 
and it does not circulate again on the plantation. Pre- 



A Present-Day Plantation 305 

sumably it is sent over to Italy for investment, as it is 
generally said that Italians have a strong love of country 
and always hope to go home again. 

We stopped at the long roomy store, where the 
negroes are supplied with all they can possibly want. It 
was a reminder of my childhood with the assortment of 
flowered muslins, brilliant calicoes, straw hats, gaily 
coloured quilts and counterpanes, shoes and slippers, 
brooms and dusters, china and glass, beads and fans, and 
lo and behold, a dream, a vision realised — a splendid 
black harness with bright, scarlet, shining blinkers. 
Now what in the world could be more becoming to a 
black mule, and set off his individual beauty so well, as 
sealing-wax red blinkers? I have always wanted a 
mule with red and black harness. If I live in the South 
again they shall both be mine. 

And, indeed, if I were young enough to wait on 
fortune, I would cast my lot upon the Mississippi Delta 
with its wonderful rich black soil, where whatever is put 
into it must grow. It seems marvellous to be almost 
within hail of a large city like New Orleans, and to see 
miles and miles of really untouched primeval forest. 
Whenever Mr. Stone takes in two hundred or five 
hundred acres, or prepares the land for lease or sale, the 
trees are belted, afterwards burned and the ground is 
cleared. It is only five years since bears were a great 
nuisance on the plantation. I have always known they 
were mischievous creatures, with their little funny, 
twinkling eyes and their slily smiling faces which 
show a keen sense of humour. From some distant 
point of vantage they must have watched the negroes 
planting long, straight rows of cotton, cunningly waited 
for the tender plants to come up, when they carefully 
straddled across each row and unerringly trampled 



3o6 My Beloved South 

down every single shooting green leaf, just to show 
what can be done by a frolicsome bear with a lack of 
conscience. 

Now, these beasts have retreated farther back into 
the woods leaving their vengeance to that dreadful, 
tragic pest, the boll-weevil. But the Agricultural De- 
partment is on his track, too ; they know what the boll- 
weevil thinks, certainly what he eats, and before long 
they are sure to produce an epidemic for him and he 
will be exterminated. Already they are cleverly chang- 
ing the seasons of cotton by planting the seed earlier 
and later, and have avoided his most prolific hour, and 
sometimes they avoid him altogether. And though at 
first seeming to bring bankrupt disaster in his wake the 
boll- weevil has not been an unmitigated evil, because he 
has proved to the South the possibility of other prod- 
ucts beside cotton. Never have I seen such Jack-and- 
the-beanstalk alfalfa as on the Dunleith plantation, and 
never have I felt so exultant over the future of my own 
land, for nothing convinces like success. 

Alfred Stone understands the negro, is the embodi- 
ment of reason in his attitude towards him, and is very 
hopeful of his future coupled with that of the white 
man in the South. He says: "It is the duty of every 
man who undertakes to study the race problem here, 
first to study the negro, just as we would the Chinese, 
the ItaHan, the Russian, or the Indian, in both his native 
and adopted homes, and without the bias, prejudice, or 
sentiment which in this country have for three quarters 
of a century rendered such attempted studies almost 
worthless." 

If the study of the negro were undertaken and care- 
fully carried out by a number of intelligent men in the 
United States, and stringent laws passed for his moral 



A Present-Day Plantation 307 

and physical development, what a benefit it would be 
for all concerned. At the present time a race of vaga- 
bonds, shiftless, idle, and lazy, are growing up without 
direction, without discipline, without purpose; moving 
aimlessly from one plantation to another, seeking vainly 
a method of avoiding work. Any one interested in the 
negro can find much valuable information in Alfred 
Stone's The American Race Probletn. His mind is 
naturally contemplative, just, and judicial. He was 
born and brought up in the South ; and having for years 
given diligent study to the condition of the negro, and 
possessing the inestimable advantage of practical 
experience, his success has proved the result of his 
theories. 

Now, even in the North, the negro franchise is 
acknowledged as having been a bitter mistake. Many 
of the negroes given a vote possess an intelligence 
scarcely above that of an observant chimpanzee. There 
is a story told of a field hand going to a circus and saying 
to a very big, black ape, "Good mawnin', sah." The 
ape remained silent. "Why don't you talk to me, 
mistah?" the darkey said; "you looks jes' like my poor 
brer John, who is done dead." The ape blinked sym- 
pathetically, but made no reply. Then the darkey's 
face broke into a smile, and he said, "You sho'ly is wise, 
sah ; 'cause ef you said anything de white folks would cut 
off yo' tail, put a hoc in yo' hand, and set you to work 
plantin' cotton," 

As I was going to Dunleith plantation a negro passed 
down the car and he was enough like Mick, a friend of 
mine in London, to have been his brother. A good 
many years ago I went one afternoon to the Zoo with 
"the Bloke with the White Teeth." (This was the 
name given to a friend from California who had helped 



3o8 My Beloved South 

to wait at a tea-party for some of my little slum friends 
in London by a little giri, a big-eyed, silent eater, who 
had made but one remark — "Tell the Bloke with the 
White Teeth to give me more cake.") A cold, yellow 
fog obscured the sun and the air was full of a desperate 
chill. One of the keepers who knew me asked if we 
would like to see a baby chimpanzee. He said, "He is 
very ill; I 'm afraid he has pneumonia and is going to 
die. He has only been in the Zoo a month, and is just 
two years old." We went into a little room, warmed 
to a tropical degree of heat, and there, lying on the 
bottom of his cage, with a bit of blanket thrown over 
him, even covering his head, lay the poor little black ape. 

As the door was opened he turned down the blanket 
and looked at me with an expression of recognition 
in his one exposed eye. The keeper said, "It 's about 
time he took his medicine; I '11 give it to him." As 
he unlocked the door and opened it, the poor creature 
gave one bound into my arms, locked his feet round my 
waist, laid his poor hot feverish head and his dribbling 
unclean nose on my fur collar, and gave a chuckle of 
satisfaction. I took out my pocket-handkerchief, and, 
while drying his nose, said to the keeper, "He thinks I 
am his mother. Whether I look like his mother or not 
I don't know, but evidently in his eyes I do. " 

He took his medicine from my hand, and I nursed 
him for quite half-an-hour. "The Bloke with the 
White Teeth" said he did n't know how I could do it. 
Mick got well, and until he grew to manhood we were 
the most devoted friends. 

I used very often to go to the Zoo to see him. He was 
always delighted at my coming, sat in my lap, kissed 
me, made a little boutonniere for my coat out of the 
straw of his cage, and really tried to talk. He was 



A Present-Day Plantation 309 

always charmingly polite, asking me to stay longer, and 
never failed to stretch out his long hands to catch 
hold of me as I went away. The keeper said, "You 
need n't be ashamed, madam, of Mick's affection; it 's 
honest. Not all the bananas nor all the nuts in London 
could buy one smile from him. He don't do any pre- 
tending, Mick don't." Mick has now grown into a 
tall, slender, strong, very athletic yoimg chimpanzee 
gentleman of sixteen ; he is less interesting in his adoles- 
cence, and is shut off from the public by a wide plate of 
glass, so that after all our years of friendship we are 
separated. But if ever I saw a close relation of Mick's 
it was the negro who walked through the car the day 
I was leaving Dunleith. 

All the time I was on the plantation my thoughts 
were constantly in England, for I knew I was seeing the 
possibilities of future homes for young Englishmen with 
or without capital, if they care to pitch their tents in the 
South. As Harris Dickson said to me, "There is a 
close sympathy between the men of the South and 
Englishmen. While in the Sudan I found their point 
of view of the negro and his management identical with 
our own." There is nothing that makes so much for 
success as contentment, and friendliness, and our 
progress has not been so rapid as to do away with our 
English kinship. 

Then, in our mild climate, only a very small capital is 
necessary. Fuel, heavy clothing, stoutly built houses, 
the expensive necessities of the North, are not needed in 
the South, and with ordinary industry and intelligence 
a man can always make his living, and even more. 
There is no country so rich in all the world as that 
wonderful Mississippi Delta. The air is delightfully 
quiet and tranquil lising and with the improvements due 



310 My Beloved South 

to science it is quite possible to live with health the 
whole year on a plantation. The screens now uni- 
versally used to keep out the flies and mosquitoes have 
done much towards establishing a sanitary condition, 
and bathrooms, quantities of ice, which is very cheap, 
fresh vegetables, and fine fruits all make life not only 
tolerable but pleasant during the summer. 

A young Englishman who came from Yorkshire to 
Alfred Stone's plantation with a letter of introduction 
has been very successful, and any industrious man 
would have the same chance. Beginning with five 
hundred pounds capital, he could rent for one year or a 
term of years, as he pleased, forty or fifty acres of land 
at a rental varying from six to ten dollars an acre, 
according to the quality of the land and the improve- 
ments already made on it. If he takes up good land 
and pays eight dollars an acre for it, the rent is not due 
until the fall of the year, when he gathers his crop, so 
that he would not require to use any capital for that. He 
could easily handle this land with two good mules, which 
would cost five hundred dollars cash. Another hundred 
would more than cover the cost of his tools, planting 
seed, and small expenses. He would have to hire a 
"hand," one man, to help him. This would cost him 
twenty dollars a month, or say two hundred and forty 
dollars for the year. He would want to set aside ten 
acres for his corn, garden patch, stable, etc., which 
would leave him thirty acres for his cotton crop. With 
anything like a normal season, he should make three 
hundred pounds of lint per acre. This would be nine 
thousand pounds, or eighteen bales of five hundred 
pounds each. If the price were good that fall, he might 
easily get fifteen cents a pound for his cotton, or seventy- 
five dollars a bale. This would give him thirteen 



A Present-Day Plantation 311 

hundred and fifty dollars for his crop. The seed from 
his eighteen bales would be about nine tons, worth, 
say, fifteen dollars per ton. This would be one hundred 
and thirty -five dollars. This would bring his total crop 
proceeds to fourteen hundred and eighty-five dollars. 
He would have planted eight acres in corn and should 
have two hundred and forty bushels as his crop. 

The cash outlay on his crop would vary with prices. 
He would, however, begin with no corn for his mules, 
and their feed would cost him about one hundred 
dollars. This would be more than ample, and indeed it 
need not be so much. He might allow himself fifty 
dollars for extra help at a time when he and his one 
labourer could not do all that was necessary. The cost 
of hiring labour to pick one bale of cotton is about 
eight dollars, but he and his helper could do enough 
picking themselves to reduce the amount paid out to, 
say, five dollars per bale or ninety dollars. In fact it 
would, or should, be considerably less. If he has been 
able to go through until fall without a waggon, he will 
certainly need one in gathering his com and hauling his 
cotton to the gin. This would cost him fifty dollars, 
and if he had a wife, he would want to pay fifty dollars 
for a good cow, or he could get one for less. He might 
also invest fifty dollars in hogs and chickens as a starter. 
Ginning his cotton would not cost him three dollars a 
bale, but, allowing that, the cost would be fifty-four 
dollars. 

The above items would total twelve hundred and 
eighty-four dollars. His crop has brought fourteen 
hundred and eighty-five dollars, which leaves him a 
balance of two hundred and one dollars, with his mules, 
tools, waggon, cow, hogs, and chickens paid for, and more 
than enough corn on hand to do away with the item of 



312 My Beloved South 

mule feed next year. There has been nothing put down 
for household and living expenses, medical attention, 
and incidentals. These can be in large measure just 
what he makes them. If he and his wife have health, 
with chickens and a garden his actual cash outlay may 
be small. To make things balance, he might cover it 
with the two hundred and one dollars which he had 
left above. 

I see that I have omitted the rent, so to make things 
plain it is better to begin at the beginning : 

Two mules $ 500 . oo 

Feed for same 100 . 00 

Waggon 50 . 00 

Tools 100 . 00 

Cow 50 . 00 

Hogs and chickens 50 . 00 

Incidentals 100 . 00 

950.00 

Regular and extra help 290 . 00 

Extra picking in the fall 90 . 00 

Ginning cotton 54-00 

Investment and operating expenses $1,384 . 00 

Rent, 40 acres at $8.00 per acre 320.00 

Total $1 ,704 . 00 

Add for living expenses aside from vegetables 

and chickens raised at home 296 . 00 

Total $2,000 . 00 

In other words, he could defray the entire cost of 
equipping himself, making his crop, living, etc., out of 



A Present-Day Plantation 313 

his capital of $2500.00 and still have $500,00 left 
plus the proceeds of his crop, which I have put at 
$1485.00. 

He could even manage with only one thousand dollars 
on the same amount of land, by simply using his capital 
for equipment and getting his supplies from an advanc- 
ing merchant to be paid for out of his crop at the end 
of the season. Of course all such figures are subject 
to the variations incident to fluctuations of prices of 
cotton and seed, on the one hand, and of what he has to 
buy on the other, but this will give a fairly good idea, 
I hope, of the general situation and its possibilities. 

Much information has been given to me by a man 
who started with no capital at all and has made his 
success on money borrowed at a rather high rate of 
interest. Very good land is to be had at from thirty to 
seventy dollars an acre. Newcomers are advised by 
planters of experience to rent land rather than to buy 
until they know the ropes. The Yazoo-Mississippi 
Delta is a section of land embracing some six thousand 
square miles lying between the Yazoo and the Missis- 
sippi rivers, and extending north from the confluence of 
those streams just above Vicksburg — and although I am 
a woman, if I had vigorous health I would pitch my 
tent on the Yazoo. The virgin soil is as black as tar; 
things planted there grow like enchantment — alfalfa 
yields six crops a year. 

Corn is very successfully grown, and the peanut 
industry is bringing the farmers a large revenue. 
Peanuts are more dependable than cotton and more 
remunerative. The yield is running from twenty to 
fifty bushels an acre, and in many instances even higher. 
The price paid in the neighbourhood by the mills is 
from eighty cents to a dollar a bushel. Even were the 



314 My Beloved South 

price to go as low as sixty cents a bushel, which con- 
tingency might arise through over-production, it would 
still be a good crop. 

The peanut is a wonderfully grateful product to raise; 
every bit of it can be used; even the residue or cake is 
ground into meal which is said to be superior to cotton- 
seed meal, and is devoiu-ed with avidity by hogs without 
the injurious effect experienced from cotton-seed meal. 
For cooking, dressings, salads, soaps, and compounds, 
peanut oil is superior to cotton-seed oil. In fact a 
chemical analysis shows very nearly the same properties 
in peanut oil and olive oil. The peanut hay has been 
found to be a valuable feed for horses, sheep, and cattle. 
The crop does not draw heavily on the fertility of the 
soil, like clover and other greedy collectors of nitrogen, 
carbonic acid gas, etc. The rotted plant may also be 
used as a fertiliser. The market for peanuts is a large 
one, not confined to the mills making oil and peanut 
butter, for candy makers, confectioners, and the humble 
"corner peanut stand" consume large quantities. And 
brokers are kept busy supplying the ever-increasing 
demand. After passing through the hands of the 
peanut cleaner, the peanut sheller, the peanut-butter 
manufacturer, the total paid out for peanuts in various 
forms amounts to $35,000,000 annually. A practical 
plea for the peanut is that two great financiers and one 
leading theatrical manager began life as little boys by 
selling paper bags of peanuts. And the Commissioner 
of Agriculture says the South is entering upon the 
greatest era of prosperity it has known since the Civil 
War. Now is the time to buy land which for the 
moment is depreciated by the boll-weevil, for in another 
two years it will have doubled and trebled in value. 

Douglas Jerrold said there were three kinds of liars, 



A Present-Day Plantation 315 

"Liars, damned liars, and statistics." I don't believe 
much in statistics — truthful, frank, reliable people have 
quite different statistics — but I have seen the South, and 
I left it full of wonder and enthusiasm. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MY HERO 

O stars that now his brothers are, 
O sun, his sire in truth and Hght, 
Go tell the listening worlds afar 
Of him who died for truth and right! 
For martyr of all martyrs he 
Who died to save an enemy. 

John Trotwood Moore. 

MY hero is not Napoleon, nor Nelson, nor Washing- 
ton, nor Lee, nor even that great and good man, 
Stonewall Jackson, whose beautiful, prophetic words 
can never be forgotten — "Order A. P. Hill to prepare 
for battle. Tell Major Hawkes to advance the com- 
missary train. Let us cross the river and rest in the 
shade/' He was only a private in the Confederate 
army, who died with steadfast eyes and a rope round his 
neck. 

Towards the close of the war, in 1863, General Bragg 
was in command at Missionary Ridge. Before he 
could dispose of his army to advantage in any direction 
it was necessary for him to have a plan of the Federal 
army in Tennessee. Three scouts were selected who 
had before done valuable service, and they were in- 
formed by General Bragg of the extreme danger of the 
duty, and were asked if they were willing to undertake 
it, if need be, to the tragic end. They replied they 

316 



My Hero 317 

were. He noticed a young, handsome, eager lad, 
listening with great attention to his orders. When he 
had finished speaking, the boy, Sam Davis, came up to 
him and said, " General Bragg, I should very much like 
to be your fourth scout." 

" Don't you think you are rather young for such a 
dangerous mission?" General Bragg asked. 

The boy smiled cheerfully and said, "Well, try 
me." 

The next day the four scouts started off together, and 
Sam Davis, with almost miraculous quickness, obtained 
all the information required. He found out that the 
Federal army in middle Tennessee was likely to move 
from Nashville to Corinth, and reinforce the army at 
Chattanooga. He got an exact account of the number 
of regiments and the whole of the artillery in the i6th 
Corps, and, what was even more remarkable, he got 
complete maps of the fortifications at all the principal 
points, including Nashville, and an accurate report of 
the entire Federal army in the whole of Tennessee. 

Sam Davis was so pleased with his rapid success 
that he wanted the praise and sympathy of the person 
he loved best in the world, his young sweetheart, to 
whom he was engaged to be married ; and he recklessly 
stopped to visit her. A small company of Federal 
cavalry saw a grey uniform enter a little rose-covered 
house, and they followed him as he came out. But 
their horses were jaded by a long march, while Sam 
Davis was mounted on a thoroughbred Kentucky mare, 
and he rushed past them on the roads he knew so well, 
making a detour, and they lost him in the sheltering 
darkness. 

The Seventh Kansas Cavalry, however, were scattered 
over his entire course, and while he was resting the next 



31 8 My Beloved South 

day in a scrub thicket at Pulaski, trying to conceal 
himself, a squad of soldiers belonging to the Seventh 
Cavalry discovered his hiding-place and captured him 
and his horse. They proceeded to take him to General 
Dodge, who was in command at Pulaski, only a mile 
and a half distant. When the frank, handsome, fear- 
less, gay-spirited lad, in his shabby grey uniform, stood 
before the General, he was immediately prepossessed 
in his favour. At that moment there was no evidence 
against him, but when they unbuckled Davis's saddle 
a fat budget of papers was d scovered under the seat, 
and upon examination. General Dodge found that all 
the information given, the number of regiments, the 
movements of the artillery in the i6th Corps, the 
reinforcements from Nashville to Corinth, and to 
Chattanooga, the fortifications at Nashville, the fine 
maps, and the perfectly accurate report of the whole 
Federal army in Tennessee, had been furnished Davis 
by a member of his own staff, and that probably the 
man who stood at his right hand was a traitor of the 
deepest dye. A captured map was a copy of the very 
one he carried in his pocket. 

He said, "Davis, you evidently have a good friend 
at court?" Davis made no reply. "I could have 
sworn to trust my life to every officer at my table, 
but the information which you have, could only have 
been given you by a friend. Young man, I must have 
the name of your informer." Davis was still silent, 
with, as General Dodge could see, a steadfast gleam of 
danger in his eye. There was no weakening there. 
And, at all costs, it was necessary to have the name 
of the traitor. "You will," he said, "without any 
court-martial have your freedom the moment you 
speak or write down the name of the man who has 



My Hero 319 

betrayed me." And he handed Davis a pencil and a 
sheet of paper. "Write it," he said, "if you cannot 
speak it. " 

Davis gave back a clean sheet of paper and the pencil 
to General Dodge, and for the first time spoke, in a 
quiet, even voice. "General Dodge," he replied, 
"when I undertook this duty from my commanding 
officer, General Bragg, I did it with a full knowledge of 
what the consequences might be. I cannot give you 
the information you want." 

The General said, "You are very young. Life must 
hold a good deal for you. Think over the situation for 
five minutes and speak again. I positively must have 
the information I am asking from you." 

Davis answered without hesitation, "Honour re- 
quires no thought; it comes from" — he lifted his hand 
and pointed upward — "God. I can only repeat that I 
cannot give the information." 

General Dodge said, " If you persist in this s'lence you 
know, of course, that, as a soldier, I must call a court- 
martial, and then the matter passes out of my hands. " 

"I know that," Davis replied. "I am a soldier 
myself; I don't criticise military methods. Call your 
court-martial. " 

General Dodge said, "It is with extreme regret that 
I am forced to such a measure. I am giving you your 
chance now; it won't be repeated later. " 

"A court-martial will give me a death sentence," said 
Davis, "but not even death will make me betray my 
word. We are both soldiers doing our duty. When 
the last moment of my life comes, I shall have acted 
fair to God and to myself. " 

By this time the young soldier's spotless honour and 
unassailable loyalty had deeply moved General Dodge, 



320 My Beloved South 

and he began to plead with genuine emotion to the boy 
to be saved. But Davis, his young face set in noble 
lines, said, " General Dodge, I have never lied or broken 
my word in my life ; I will willingly die now rather than 
do it. My mind is firmly made up. A court-martial 
may condemn me, but do not expect me to betray my 
trust. I will never do it, never." 

A court-martial was then called. General Dodge was 
filled with regret, thinking that the very man who 
furnished Davis with the information was probably at 
that moment giving him his death sentence. It seemed 
too horrible. The execution was delayed while en- 
quiries were made about Davis and his family. It was 
found that an old friend of his mother was living in 
Pulaski. General Dodge sent for her and said to her, 
"Talk ! o the boy about his home and about his mother. 
He looks to me, with all his courage and his steadfast- 
ness, a sort of mother's boy. Surely at twenty he is not 
going to sacrifice his life to save a traitor. I don't know 
who the man is who gave him the information, but he 
is n't worth the death of Sam Davis. " 

The lady used all her eloquence; she repeated what 
General Dodge had said ; she spoke of his mother's de- 
votion to him, of her love, and of the close bond that 
existed between them, and she asked if he realised that 
he was never to see her again and of the great grief 
he was to give her. 

"Why, " said the young man, crying like a little child, 
"my mother is the person who taught me never to lie 
and to keep my word. She will grieve, I know, not to 
see me again, but I will never betray the man who gave 
me the information, and he knows it. It is n't only the 
other man I am saving. How could I live through all 
the years and despise the man I have to live with, 



My Hero 321 

Myself? How could I wake through the nights and 
remember the man I lied to and condemned? No, I 
will die with honour; I will never live dishonoured. 
God knows I will not." 

The lady returned to General Dodge and repeated 
her conversation, and they both wrung their hands 
with helplessness. 

On Friday, Davis was handcuffed, and he walked 
steadily and sat down on his coffin with the fresh-faced 
look of a boy who has slept well and is the possessor of a 
glorious conscience. 

General Dodge had passed a sleepless night and was 
awake long before the condemned man. He called his 
staff together and ordered them to the place of execu- 
tion, hoping that even at the last moment Davis would 
speak, or the man who had furnished Davis with his 
information would be touched by the boy's great valour, 
and that he might still be saved. 

A rope was placed around his neck by hesitating 
hands; the lines of quiet determination in the exalted 
face deepened. There stood the martyr of all ages. 

"Wait!" The voice of General Dodge rang out like 
a pistol shot. " Davis, in the name of God, give me the 
name of your informant! Your horse is waiting for 
you. Look, she is there in the thicket, and here is your 
escort to carry you back to your own lines in safety. 
One word, and you are a free man. " 

Davis turned his young head, and looked longingly 
at the horse. "Queenie, old girl," he called; the mare 
whinnied, the boy's eyes filled with tears. Then he 
smiled and with his handcuffed hands gently touched the 
rope around his neck and said: "General Dodge, this is 
my badge of freedom. I have only one Hfe, and I give 
it for honour. Take it." 



322 My Beloved South 

There he stood, tall, brave, healthy, strong, handsome, 
intelligent, unflinching, ready to die rather than betray 
his word. Officers and men were by this time quietly 
and unashamedly weeping. The only calm and stead- 
fast soul was his. The boy gave some little keepsakes 
to the Provost Marshal for his mother and his sweet- 
heart. Then he turned his young face squarely towards 
the sun, looked at it like a young eagle, and waited. 

There was a dead silence. No man could speak. 
Presently a quiet, steady voice said, "Do your duty, 
men." Davis had himself bravely given the order. 
And his soul went home to God. 

When John Trotwood Moore wrote his touching 
version of the story the end was not known, but years 
afterwards a dandified negro spoke, and said he had 
been a trusted servant in the camp of General Dodge. 
He was quick-witted, alert, and it was easy for him to 
get all the information that Davis wanted. They had 
played together as boys, and he liked Davis and served 
him willingly, and he, who had received many a sound 
thrashing from his young playmate, knew that no power 
on earth would make Davis betray him. 

It is said that he saw Davis for one moment after 
the court-martial and asked, "Well, Marse Sam, who 's 
it gwine to be?" And Davis gave him his hand and 
answered, smiling, "Me, Tom; who did you think it 
was going to be?" The negro whimpered and said, 
" Dat 's what I thought. But you know you made me 
do it, Marse Sam, and I gets mighty skeered some- 
times. I don't want to die." Davis said, "Don't 
you worry, death won't come to you through me. " 

So the white man, the white Southern man, the young 
Confederate soldier, fighting against the cause of the 
negro, gave his life to save him, and yet the politicians 



My Hero 323 

of the country continually make capital out of the 
problem of the negro in the South. The problem was 
solved on the day Sam Davis, with a soul as pure as a 
flame, died for a negro rather than betray him. Carlyle 
was right when he said that loyalty is the greatest 
attribute of the human race. Loyalty to a cause, to a 
friend, is fine, but loyalty to a foe is God-like. There 
are no people anywhere who have so much understand- 
ing, so much tenderness, and such a divine patience 
towards the negro as the Southern people. 

I am quite sure that when they come to die and appear 
at the gate of heaven they have only to say to St. Peter, 
"I come from South Carolina" (or from Mississippi, or 
Louisiana, or any of the Southern States), and the doors 
of heaven will be thrown wide open, and in they will 
walk as a reward for the great trials which the negro 
has inflicted upon them and which they have borne with 
laughing, Christian, enduring fortitude. 

It was the great President Lincoln who said, "I am 
not and never have been in favour of bringing about in 
any form the social and political equality of the black 
and white races. There is a physical difference which 
prevents them from living together on terms of social 
and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so 
live, while they do remain together there must be a 
position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as 
any other man, am in favour of having the superior 
position assigned to the whites." 

What good things President Lincoln said, both grave 
and gay! Some one was praising a man to him, and his 
comment was, "A good fellow, possibly, but sadly 
interruptious. " 

William Archer, a man of cultivation, with a just 
and fair mind, has said in his interesting book. Through 



324 My Beloved South 

Afro-America: "What I think about the colour question 
must be superficial, and may be fooUsh, but there is a 
certain evidential value in what I feel/' The sub- 
conscious man in the white man rises up in revolt at a 
too close contact with the negro. The white race is un- 
doubtedly superior to the black race. It is not a ques- 
tion of argument. It is a matter of instinct in both races. 

There are assuredly people in the world, even nations, 
who are born to be dominated. God has given to cer- 
tain men the qualities of leaders, and because the negro 
is inferior to the white man that does not lessen either 
his usefulness or his power for inspiring affection in the 
man above him. Nor does it lessen the necessity of the 
Southern people for the labour of the negro. White 
men can never work in rice fields; they cannot labour 
with impunity in the cotton fields; they cannot plant 
and cut sugar-cane. They have tried white roustabouts 
on the Mississippi steamboats, and it has been a failure ; 
they have been obliged to employ black labour again. 
When the negro realises his limitations and accepts 
them, and the white man develops him as far as his 
capacity permits and insists upon all laws for his good 
being strictly enforced, and when the politicians find 
another shibboleth than the negro in the South; then 
there will be a natural and humane solution of the race 
problem. 

When my grandfather was Governor of Florida, the 
President, for the purpose of civilising the Indians, sent 
down a mandate from Washington that schools should 
be built for their education. The chiefs gathered to- 
gether and held a solemn conclave. Then Neamathla 
sent for the Governor and said, "My good brother, we 
have a message to send to the Great Father in Wash- 
ington. He knows a great deal, but perhaps he does n't 



My Hero 325 

know this, that Indians and books are far apart ; the Great 
Spirit never intended one for the other. You see," he 
went on to explain, "when the Great Spirit first made 
man he was black. He did n't like him at all, and said 
to himself, ' A very bad bit of work on my part ; I must 
try my hand again.' He did, and the next venture 
was a red man. The Great Spirit liked him a good deal 
better, but still he said, 'There is nothing like try, try 
again.' He then made the white man. He was tall 
and fair with blue eyes. And the Great Spirit was at 
last quite satisfied with his work. The white man is 
the youngest of the three brothers, and yet, he can 
always govern. 

"Then the Great Spirit said, 'Now I am going to 
find out what these three men want.' And he made 
books, and maps, and charts, and bows and arrows, and 
tomahawks, and long knives, and spades and hoes, and 
he called, 'White man, come here and make your 
choice.' The white man looked long and earnestly at 
the bows and arrows, for he, too, likes hunting, while the 
red man, knowing exactly what he wanted, stood by 
with his heart fluttering like a bird. After a while the 
white man, not even looking in the direction of the 
hoes and spades, gathered together the books and maps 
and charts and slowly walked away. Then the Indian, 
darting down like a hawk on lesser prey, seized the 
bows and arrows and rushed off to the woods. And 
there was nothing left for the poor black man but the 
hoe and the spade. You see, my young white brother, 
the Great Spirit knows his work best, and what his 
people want." And the Indians, acting on the moral of 
this fable, refused absolutely to go to school. 

Delve deep enough into any folk-lore, and sound 
philosophical truth will be discovered under its charm- 



326 My Beloved South 

ing fantasies. The white man, the Anglo-Saxon in 
particular, is undoubtedly made to govern. He has 
done it admirably in all countries, but whether admir- 
ably or not, he has done it and will continue to do 
it. Whatever land has come under England's rule 
has progressed and prospered. Curiously enough, no 
people more generously acknowledge this fact (when 
not applied to themselves) than the Irish. The 
soldiers who fought with the most desperate courage in 
the Boer War were Irishmen, shouting with their last 
breath, "Long live the Queen!" although only a few 
weeks before these very men had sailed from Dublin 
and thrown their bayonets into the Liffey with cries of 
"Long live Kruger!" Something must be allowed for 
temperament, but given a new environment and quick 
assimilation of the Irish with other peoples, there are no 
better rulers in the world. This is proved by the long 
roll of distinguished and honoured names in those 
dominions where the sun never sets. 

Booker Washington, who has done such excellent 
work for the negro, tells a story of which even he does 
not see the true significance: "A negro preacher was 
late for a train. He stopped and said to a white hack 
driver, ' Will you drive me to the depot ?' ' No, ' said the 
white man, 'I can't afford to be seen driving a negro 
through town.' The negro said, 'All right, can you be 
seen with a negro driving you through town ? If you can, 
just you get into the back seat, and I will drive the hack 
to the depot and pay you my fare as well.' " And he did. 

Booker Washington adds, "The main thing is that 
both got to the depot." That, however, is nol the 
main thing; it is that even in this little matter the white 
man took the lead over the black one, for the white 
race will always dominate. 



CHAPTER XXII 

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CIVIL WAR 

Call it not vain; — they do not err 
Who say that, when the Poet dies, 
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper 
' And celebrates his obsequies: 

That mountains weep in crystal rill; 
That flowers in tears of balm distil; 
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, 
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply: 
That rivers teach their rushing wave 
To murmur dirges round his grave. 

Sir Walter Scott. 

A FRIEND in New Orleans asked me, "Betty, 
what has pleased you most in America?" 
"That," I said, "is a big question. So many things 
have pleased me — the faithfulness of my old friends ; the 
generous hospitality of my new ones; the brilliant blue 
skies; the scent of the familiar flowers. And, then, I 
am not altogether displeased with myself — when I see 
how quickly I have fallen into the patient ways of the 
South, I know that my very being is rooted here. For 
instance, I engage a negro seamstress to come on 
Monday for two days' mending. She turns up on 
Thursday, having highly inconvenienced me. I wel- 
come her with a smile and listen sweetly to her absurd, 
mendacious excuses. I engage a woman to wash my 

327 



328 My Beloved South 

hair on Tuesday. She turns up on Friday. I make no 
reproaches, but sit down, thankful to have her arrive at 
all. I make my washerwoman swear to bring me a 
white dress on Thursday evening. I say, 'You know, 
Emily, I 'm not like people living in America, I have n't 
many washing clothes, and only one white dress, and I 
really and truly need it. You won't disappoint me, will 
you.'*' 'No, indeed. Miss Betty, I won't, I '11 suttenly 
bring you dat dress Thursday, maybe Wednesday night ; 
't ain't much to wash.' The following Monday comes 
before she brings my dress — and I am quite amiable. I 
only say, ' Emily, how could you have disappointed me 
so?' And she says, 'I could n't help it, the weather 's 
bin so hot dat I des could n't git here. ' And I have 
seen so quickly how useless complaint is. You simply 
must exercise patience and philosophy. It would be 
like getting into a rage with an irresponsible child to 
quarrel with a present-day darkey, and yet how terrible 
it is not to have the slightest authority over these 
foolish grown-up black children ! In the cotton South, 
where negroes can make enough money picking cotton 
in the summer to exist in idleness in the winter, no 
servant will sleep in the house at night, and every 
housekeeper wakes up with an anxious heart in the 
morning. If she hears the kitchen fire being raked out 
she gives a little sigh of relief, for she knows that, with 
the slightest excuse, or no excuse at all, both the cook 
and the housemaid will stay at home if they feel dis- 
inclined to work. 

Mary Clark's cook in Washington told her she was 
going to the hospital for an operation and would be 
gone for two or three weeks. Mary was all sympathy 
and help. What the woman did was to take a place 
with one of Mary's friends to find out whether she liked 



Walter Scott and the Civil War 329 

the place, but as she did n't she returned in a week, 
saying the doctor could n't find her appendix. Every 
Southern woman now has to know how to build a fire 
and cook and clean a house, and nurse, and sew, and 
above all she learns quick resource and cheerful philo- 
sophy. A race of Old Reliables, or Young Reliables, 
are developing a wonderful power of endurance, for- 
bearance, and fortitude in the South. Harris Dickson's 
"Busy Day" speaks more eloquently than many politi- 
cal tracts of the trials and long-suffering of Southerners ; 
and though he has, with gifted pen, rendered the negroes 
into humorous photographs, they are none the less sore 
trials and ceaseless aggravations. 

We all have our limitations, our prejudices, our 
opinions, which are occasionally founded upon simple 
instincts, regardless of facts ; but it is a question whether 
these opinions are of sure value. There are also those 
clever, twisted, contrary intellects, with a point of 
view so foreign to their own country that they seem to 
belong to another nationality. 

Mark Twain said of himself that he was a "de- 
Southernised Southerner." Certainly he had little 
sympathy or taste for the South, and nowhere does he 
show it more prominently than in his assertion that 
Sir Walter Scott was in a great measure responsible for 
the Civil War. 

Then [he says] comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchant- 
ments, and by his single might checks this wave of progress 
and even turns it back; sets the world in love with dreams 
and phantoms ; with decayed and swinish forms of religion ; 
with decayed and degraded systems of government; with 
the sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, 
and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long- 
vanished society. He did measureless harm ; more real and 



330 My Beloved South 

lasting hann, perhaps, than any other individual that ever 
wrote. 

Most of the world has now outlived a good part of these 
harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South 
they flourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as 
half a generation ago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, 
the genuine and wholesome civilisation of the nineteenth 
century is curiously confused and commingled with the 
Walter Scott Middle Age sham civilisation, and so you have 
practical common sense, progressive ideas, and progressive 
works mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, the 
jejune romanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out 
of charity ought to be buried. But for the Sir Walter Scott 
disease, the character of the Southerner — or Southron, ac- 
cording to Sir Walter's starchier way of putting it — would be 
wholly modern, in place of modern and mediaeval mixed, and 
the South would be fully a generation further on than it is. 

" It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the 
South a major, or a general, or a colonel, or a judge before 
the war; and it was he also that made these gentlemen 
value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created 
rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and 
caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid 
on slavery, without fathering upon it these creations and 
contributions of Sir Walter. 

" Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern 
character as it existed before the war, that he is in great 
measure responsible for the war. It seems a little harsh 
towards a dead man to say that we never should have 
had a war but for Sir Walter ; and yet something of a plaus- 
ible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of the 
wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolu- 
tion owned slaves, so did the Southerner of the American 
Civil War; but the former resembles the latter as an 
Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of 
character can be traced rather more easily to Sir Walter's 
influence than to that of any living thing or person." 



Walter Scott and the Civil War 331 

Unfortunately, in this assertion Mark Twain can be 
bolstered up by evidence, for nowhere in the world was 
Sir Walter Scott so much loved or so widely read as in 
the South. M. Jules d'Avezac, an emigre from San 
Domingo, translated Marmion into French and sent it 
to Sir Walter, who replied with a letter saying how 
pleased he was that the Muse had repeated his verses in 
another hemisphere. There are Southern men, — and 
my dear father was one, — and there are certainly South - 
em women, who know every novel and every scene in 
the novels of all the twenty-seven which Sir Walter has 
written. Mark Twain said he did measureless harm, 
more real and lasting harm, than any other individual 
who ever wrote. But what did he teach? Loyalty and 
self-sacrifice, a sense of obligation to your kinsfolk, 
chivalry, tenderness, and protection to women, honour 
and truth to your neighbour, courage and valour in 
battle, open-handed hospitality, and a sense of re- 
sponsibility towards those dependent on you. Is n't 
that just as good teaching as "practical common sense, 
progressive ideas, and progressive works"? 

There is no place where brutality is exhibited with 
such pride, or where the manners of the lower classes 
are so detestable, or where there is so much friction to a 
person of refinement, as New York — our greatest city of 
" progressive ideas and progressive works. " And there 
is not the smallest consolation to an American in the 
suggestion that the brutality, vulgarity, and bad man- 
ners are imported with our bonnets and dresses from 
various ports, for it is more difficult to endure the 
insolence of aliens than that of your own people. 

Even Sir Walter Scott, with all his genius, could not 
impose one dream or vision upon the stony soul of New 
York. And what would life be worth to some of us 



332 My Beloved South 

without dreams and visions? There are other things 
besides progress and "practical common sense." I 
doubt if Shakespeare had the latter. There are no 
traces of it in Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer 
Night's Dream, and yet he is immortal. Carlyle said, 
"The problem of politics is, how out of a multitude of 
knaves to make an honest people." New York, in the 
midst of its splendid progress, can be left to solve this 
problem. 

Mark Twain complains of the "Sir Walter Scott 
Middle Age sham civilisation," yet under that "sham 
civilisation" before the war the South created politi- 
cians who were gentlemen of property, distinction, and 
honour. They did not put their hands into the pockets 
of the government and withdraw them contaminated 
with "graft, " as so many of the politicians of the North 
have done since the war. Their ideas were not pro- 
gressive enough for the worship of money; they still 
believed in honesty, truth, straightforwardness, and, if 
it need be, self-sacrifice and poverty. What statesman 
was it who said, "The Southern statesman went for 
honours and the Northern one for profit"? 

The trusts, that have done such infinite harm in 
America, did not originate in the South. The high 
tariff that is impeding the universal progress of the 
United States has been established by Northern men. 
The enormous fortunes which are a menace and danger 
to the country have been amassed by Northern men. 
Slavery had its drawbacks, for anything that gives men 
unlimited power is wrong; but it had its advantages in 
that it established a sense of responsibility in the masters 
towards the individuals and that sense of responsibility 
extended itself to the State. Southern men had, and 
still have, very great civic pride. Like the English, 



Walter Scott and the Civil War 333 

they have taken root in the soil and love of country is 
with them instinctive. As for the "romanticism of an 
absurd past that is dead," who have a better right to 
a romantic past than we of the South? And Mark 
Twain is wrong in imagining that for us it can ever die. 
It is indeed history's most thrilling page, and "Once 
upon a time" would be the fit prelude for the most 
commonplace story that could be told of our beloved 
South. Its beginnings run like a fairy tale, whispered 
in breathless morsels, for the shuddering delight of 
children. The quest of glittering El Dorado, the fables 
of Florida, the demon-haunted Mississippi with its 
tangled brakes and bearded forests, the wondrous 
Children of the Sun, the burial of De Soto, the pity of 
Evangeline are tales of which the world will never 
weary. 

The sailors of Columbus, returning, filled Europe 
with marvellous stories of the Indies, the realms of 
Prester John, the fabulous wealth of Cipango. Spain, 
the credulous, emerging from her victorious wars with 
the Moor, turned eagerly towards the West. Ponce de 
Leon searched the wilds of Florida for the Fountain 
of Eternal Youth. De Soto led his mail-clad knights 
through the forests of Alabama, weaving a story of gold 
and goblins, more weird than any adventure that ever 
passed with the wine aroimd King Arthur's Table. 

Through this country the Chevalier La Salle led the 
most quixotic expedition ever conceived by mortal man 
— composed as it was of impoverished nobles, released 
felons, Castilian peasants, and San Domingo buccaneers 
thirsting for the pillage of the Seven Cities of Gold. 
A tidal wave hurled him upon the shores of Texas where 
he built his melancholy fortress called "The St. Louis 
of Sorrow." In an effort to reach Canada on foot he 



334 My Beloved South 

died by an assassin's hand on the bank of the Neches 
River. 

Iberville, Knight Errant of the Seas ; De Tonty of the 
Iron Hand; Lafitte, the pirate of Barataria; Murrell, the 
robber of the Natchez trail — traditions such as these 
cast a glamour of glory and a ray of romance athwart 
the long lean record of commercial entries. 

Bienville the Builder, brother to the chivalrous 
Iberville, was the first of all these pioneers who saw that 
unlimited wealth, power, and human happiness lay 
concealed in the earth beneath their feet. He it was 
who foresaw the mighty destiny of this temperate 
climate, this fructifying sun, these fertile lands lying 
fallow for the conquest of the plough and reaping-hook. 
The kings of France and Spain, every monarch and 
potentate who sent out a colony, charged them specially 
to seek for mines, to sift the sands of the sea, and filter 
the waters of the Mississippi which would give up their 
rich sediment of gold. The gold for which Pizarro had 
sinned and De Soto died, Bienville found in the rich 
soil. When he built the ramparts of New Orleans, 
discouraged the search for mines, and set his thrifty 
immigrants to work in the fields, Bienville wrote the 
preface to a history of Southern change. 

In later explorations and settlement such men as 
Boone and Crockett led the way. The axe and the 
plough followed the trail of the rifle, and the smoke of 
the housewife's kitchen uprose beside the temporary 
fire of the huntsman's camp. The dream of the ad- 
venturer began its fulfilment, realised through patient 
labour and not by the hand of conquest. The Knight 
Errant passed away; the farmer came, and the farmer 
has changed the spirit of the South. Throughout the 
period of exploration the South attracted the adventure- 



Walter Scott and the Civil War 335 

loving cavalier ; the North drew to itself a steady middle- 
class folk who hoped for more enduring success in the 
fruits of their toil. 

When Napoleon's empire fell, many of the highest 
nobles of France sought an asylum in the South. 
Alabama granted them lands and named their country 
"Marengo" in honour of the Little Corporal's great 
victory. Dukes and marshals, in knee-breeches and 
powdered hair, worked in the fields, while their grand 
ladies in silks and satins spread their remnant of silver 
plate upon rough-hewn tables in the humblest of log 
cabins. Louis Philippe taught in a school in Mississippi 
and a runaway daughter of the Emperor Charles lies 
buried and forgotten in a cemetery of Louisiana. There 
has been so much of romance, both of fact and fiction, 
woven into the country's history that it has tinctured 
the life of the people and added a distinct touch of 
idealism to their character. 

With a past like ours, we can never be altogether 
practical and commercial, but the day will come, and 
in many instances it has already come, when men and 
women of the South will do great things inspired by the 
memory of that "romantic past" of which Mark Twain 
so slightingly speaks. Notwithstanding his disparage- 
ment of my country, I am not ungrateful to this great 
writer who has added so much to the gaiety of na- 
tions; to no one has he given more pure delight than 
myself. How humorous he could be in a few words! 
Some one in Germany asked him if he had heard any 
of Wagner's operas. "Yes," he said, "last night I 
listened to one of his Insurrections. " And when a girl 
asked him his favourite motto he answered, "Not 
Guilty ! " He was far more convincing with his humour 
than with his serious writing. His little attack on Sir 



336 My Beloved South 

Walter Scott and the South leaves one cold and unre- 
sponsive; the way in which it is done is unconvincing, 
undistinguished, and even acid. 

Our bodies do not always match our souls. I know 
a man in England, tall, fair, fine of stature, perfect of 
physique, classic in feature, yet his soul is a little, dark, 
mean, petty, stunted affair. I know another man, 
small and deformed of body, with a wizened face, but 
his soul is tall, handsome, graceful, beautiful, and 
statuesque. Mark Twain ought to have been a South- 
erner, but he was bom with a too practical soul. His 
hardness made him understand the North, and he did 
it more than justice; his want of romance made him 
misunderstand the South, and he did it less than justice. 

Sometimes a man is born to another nationality. Sir 
Richard Burton was without doubt an Oriental; Byron 
was an Italian; Pamell was an American. All these 
oddities and mysteries seem to fit in with the theory of 
reincarnation, which is to those who have it an infinitely 
comforting belief. 

While sauntering through the crowded street, 
Some half -remembered face I meet, 

Albeit upon no mortal shore 

That face, methinks, hath smiled before. 

Lost in a gay and fatal throng, 
I tremble at some tender song 

Set to an air whose golden bars 
I must have heard in other stars. 

One sails toward me o'er the bay, 
And what he comes to do and say 

I can foretell. A prescient lore 
Springs from some life outlived of yore. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

GALLANT, BRAVE, HEARTY KENTUCKY 

Sometime, from the far away, 

Wing a little thought to me, 
In the night, or in the day. 

It will give a rest to me. 

Father Thomas Ryan. 

I THINK no city in the South has a larger number of 
agreeable and cultivated women than Louisville, 
Kentucky. Without a realisation of it, perhaps, they 
have always lived where the standard of literature is 
high. For Henry Watterson, editor of the Courier- 
Journal, is one of the most brilliant and versatile 
journalists in America. His editorials are an education, 
his style is always scholarly, and he writes with force, 
tenderness, and charm. Nothing can be more poetic 
than his description of the great hunter Daniel Boone's 
discovery of Kentucky: 

He came afoot, and was followed by a little troop of 
heroes and poets like himself. I say heroes and poets for, 
stirred by the fine frenzy of true poetry and the adven- 
turous daring of true heroism, they set out upon an enter- 
prise which brought forth an epic. Nature herself seemed 
conscious of the coming of an important embassy, and 
put on her richest apparel to receive it. The pomp of all 
the heraldries in the world could not have furnished out a 
splendider fete than that which waited these humble 
22 337 



338 My Beloved South 

ministers and envoys in buckskin. It was when the June 
skies were softest and the June fruition was at its full; 
when the elm and the maple vied with one another which 
should show itself the more hospitable and magnificent; 
when the welcoming bluebirds' call was clearest and 
sweetest, that the mysterious pathway through the forest 
which had opened day after day, not like the fabled avenue 
in the enchanted garden, but like the track pointed out to 
Christian by divine inspiration, brought the little band to 
an elevation from which its members beheld, for the first 
time, the land they had come so far to see. Moses, 
stretching his weary eyes from Pisgah into Canaan, was 
not gladdened and refreshed by a lovelier prospect. It 
was, Boone declares in his autobiography, "a second 
paradise." 

Mrs. Clay in A Belle of the Fifties ^ gives a description 
of Henry Watterson as a boy: 

Though not members of our resident circle, my memories 
of dear old Brown's would scarcely be complete without a 
mention of little Henry Watterson, with whose parents our 
"mess" continually exchanged visits for years. Henry, 
their only child, was then an invalid, debarred from the 
usual recreations of other boys by weak eyes that made the 
light unbearable and reading all but impossible; yet at 
fifteen the lad was a born politician and eager for every 
item of news from the Senate or House. "What bills were 
introduced to-day? Who spoke? Please tell me what took 
place to-day?" were among the questions with which the 
youth was wont to greet the ladies of our "mess, " when he 
knew them to be returning from a few hours spent in the 
Senate gallery, and, though none foresaw the later distinc- 
tion which awaited the young invalid, no one of us was ever 
so hurried and impatient that she could not and did not 
take time to answer his earnest enquiries. 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 339 

Much of Mr. Watterson's work has been lost in the 
ephemeral life of the newspaper, but some beautiful 
essays have been gathered together and preserved in his 
book of Life's Compromises. And under his uncon- 
scious guidance a little group of Louisville women have 
made world-wide reputations and fortunes. Alice 
Hegan Rice is, as her name betokens, of Irish descent. 
Both she and her mother have always worked among 
the poor, and out of her philanthropical experiences 
came her first book, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, 
which is now known throughout the entire world, 
both as a story and a play. She has since married Cale 
Young Rice, a dramatist and poet. 

These little verses of his are full of grace and feeling : 



I met a child upon the moor 
A-wading down the heather; 

She put her hands into my own, 
We crossed the fields together. 

I led her to her father's door — 
A cottage 'mid the clover, 

I left her — and the world grew poor 
To me, a childless rover. 

I met a maid upon the moor. 
The morrow was her wedding. 

Love lit her eyes with lovelier hues 
Than the eve-star was shedding. 

She looked a sweet good-bye to me, 
And o'er the stile went singing, 

Down all the lonely night I heard 
But bridal bells a-ringing. 



340 My Beloved South 

I met a mother on the moor, 

By a new grave a-praying, 
The happy swallows in the blue 

Upon the winds were playing. 

"Would I were in his grave," I said, 
"And he beside her standing! 
There was no heart to break if death 
For me had made demanding." 

The poet and the authoress have a pretty house 
filled with souvenirs of wanderings in many lands. Mrs. 
Rice is a delightful woman, generous and inspiring to 
other writers. She is, indeed, the fairy-godmother of 
that popular book, The Lady of the Decoration. Mrs. 
McCauley, a cousin of Mrs. Rice's, went to Japan as a 
missionary, and while there wrote such charming letters 
home that Alice Hegan thought the public should have a 
share in their pleasure, and she carried them to a pub- 
lisher who said that, with the addition of a slight love 
story, he would publish them. So the little rgmance 
was deftly threaded through the chain of letters and the 
book made an enormous success. Think of the delight 
of waking up in the morning, and finding the post had 
brought you a book written by yourself of which you 
knew nothing! 

Elizabeth Robins is another of the remarkable women 
born in Louisville. I have seen her act in many plays, 
and she has the same rare and unique intellectual gift 
as an actress that has made Mrs. Fiske so famous. It is 
what she is keeping back and might say and not what 
she does say that is so curiously thrilling! Who will 
ever forget her in the Master Builder — an exterior of 
ice covering a fiery volcano, with a manner mysteriously 
compelHng and excitingly evoking curiosity. She was 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 341 

equally good as Agnes in Brand, and she was quite real 
and heartbreaking in a little unacknowledged play of her 
own. It was the story of a woman who worshipped 
health and strength and physical beauty, and deplored 
and abhorred deformity and weakness. The husband 
of the woman was a master machinist, a man of physical 
perfection. Before the birth of their child he was 
brought home maimed and dead. The baby born into 
the world was a malformed cripple, and the mother, 
rather than have him grow up never to walk or run or 
jump like a normal boy, smothers him, although she 
loved the poor little creature with great intensity, and 
is tried for murder. Miss Robins in this strange story 
was appealing, intense, and touchingly convincing, but 
the critics with one accord slaughtered the play. Men 
— even critics — so dislike the painful problem of a 
woman's life. Now she is known through her pen. 
The Open Question, if not absolutely satisfying, is still 
a powerful novel, and, intellectually she has taken her 
place among the first writers of her generation. 

George Madden Martin, another successful woman, 
tall and slim with pretty flower-blue eyes, has an en- 
gaging personality, most agreeable and gentle manner, 
and is the author of Emmy Lou, a little book which 
has deservedly gone into innumerable editions. Like 
Margaret Deland, she is childless, but she needs no 
children of her own to give her the humorous, tender 
understanding of a child's heart, and the creations of her 
brain only require flesh and blood to become human, 
lovable boys and girls. 

And there is dear Maud Cossar — with her beauty, 
her many-sided nature, her varied accomplishments, her 
quick sympathy, and her stern discipline by Fate, she 
is more the figure for a novel than a real woman. But 



342 My Beloved South 

who so full of resource, and so practical as she? An 
accomplished journalist, she turns out a column of copy- 
daily for the Herald with infinite ease, and her nimble 
brain finds only amusement in those absurd questions 
propounded by the curious and the idle to the all-wise 
editors of newspapers. Then, she is a deft needle- 
woman, an excellent cook, whenever she has the oppor- 
tunity an open-air woman with a keen appreciation of 
nature, a born gardener, and a true lover of animals. 
Even Jack London cannot write more tenderly of dogs 
than Maud can talk of them. Her tale of * ' Stray Baby ' ' 
a humorously pathetic story of a homeless dog after- 
wards adopted by the staff of the Herald, might well be 
made into a little book. 

And there is Barbour Bruce who might have been a 
writer, but is only known as a trenchant wit — "Who," 
she asked at a party, "was that nice, well-dressed, 
refined, comm^on woman who has just had her cup of 
tea and gone away?" This complete description fitted 
the lady like her skin. She was an American educated 
in France and Italy, had lived much of her life in Eng- 
land, and, given every advantage of education and so- 
ciety, was quietly refined in manner, but her soul was 
common. Only the quickest and most penetrating eye 
however would have discovered the deal beneath the 
shining veneer. 

The night after my arrival in Louisville, Barbour had 
asked half a dozen friends to supper, and when she 
went into the kitchen of the apartment to give the cook 
an order, she found this independent black lady had 
gone to church. When my hostess with a vexed and 
anxious face opened the door and looked in, Maud, 
who was in the little flower-decked drawing-room, 
dressed in white chiffon, with a wreath of silver leaves 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 343 

on her thick burnished hair, immediately went to her. 
Presently Barbour returned with a relieved, cheerful 
expression, and her serviceable guest, with her delicate 
gown covered by a big apron was in the kitchen gaily 
cooking supper, which she had been invited to eat. 
How good and how hot it was; never, never, have I 
eaten such deliciously flavoured macaroni. Its delicacy 
may have been enhanced by the chaplet of silver and 
the white gown, but certainly that dish was perfection, 
and Maud's very pink cheeks were the only evidence of 
her most beneficent occupation. Perhaps, after all, the 
best thing about her is not her beauty, which is of the 
noble, classical, durable kind — a low broad brow, fine 
eyes, straight nose, a well-cut mouth, and a correctly 
modelled contour of face — but her great heart, and her 
firm hands constantly busy in service. She has made 
just the right marriage, to a fellow-journalist, young and 
ambitious, who first appealed to her by his affection- 
ate attentions to "Stray Baby," — for only a man who 
loved children and animals, flowers, trees, a home, and 
friends could attract Maud, 
Barbour writes to me : 

Maud and Aubrey have bought a cottage that I always 
loved as a child. I never remember all through the winter 
the many-paned windows not being ablaze with beckoning 
lamplight and firelight. I longed to go in but never did. 
Now at twilight I shall often lift the latch, and what a home 
Maud will make Aubrey! But he knows it, and is proudly 
grateful. 

Pretty, tall, young Letetia MacDonald, another 
aspirant for literature, is having the way of the story- 
writer made exceedingly easy for her. And there are 
other clever women who have not expressed themselves 



344 My Beloved South 

through the pen. Mary Johnson is one of them; not 
the great little Mary Johnston of Richmond, who wrote 
To Have and To Hold, but Louisville's Mary Johnson, a 
well-known Friend, devoted, unselfish, and uncompro- 
misingly loyal. With her ' ' The King can do no wrong, ' ' 
and Kentuckians are proverbially generous. She gets 
back what she gives. On one of her late birthdays her 
friends gave her a dinner, with a speech and a loving- 
cup filled to the brim, and running over with love. 
There was a long silence before she could frame her 
thanks for their unexpected appreciation. Then came 
a hearty "Hurrah Friend!" to cover the feeling her 
trembling speech brought forth. Her judgment is as 
good about books as about men and women. An 
omnivorous reader of both foreign and American lit- 
erature, her opinion has the value of a professional 
reviewer's. 

Louisville prides itself, and with reason, upon its 
open-armed hospitality, and lavishly as those delightful 
women entertained me, one unforgotten field-day stands 
out in my memory. It began in the early morning with 
flowers and friends, then followed a luncheon party, a 
concert, a tea, a sm.all dinner, a large opera party, and 
then a supper at the Pendennis Club completed the 
festivities. In spite of the strenuous day I was quite 
fresh for a dinner the next night, and sat at the right 
hand of Judge Humphrey, a most entertaining man, who 
informed me that through the Popes we were distant 
cousins. And we are cousins. Far-away relationships 
are so convenient ; if you like your kins-people you boldly 
acknowledge them, if not, like Peter you deny them. 

Having settled our cousinship, we fell to discussing 
our families, and when my grandmother's name was 
mentioned. Judge Humphrey said, "Then you must be 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 345 

a relation of Colonel Hynes, who had such a remarkable 
experience during the war. He was suspected of being 
a Confederate spy, and being hotly pursued by the 
Union infantry, he took refuge in the house of a friend 
whose wife was ill in bed. He had only been in the 
house a few minutes when the measured tread of sol- 
diers marching up the garden path was heard. ' Quick ! ' 
said his host. ' What am I to say? What are you going 
to do? ' * Fumble at the lock of the door, ' said Colonel 
Hynes; 'don't open it any sooner than you can help. 
Will you let me hide myself in your wife's room ? ' ' Yes, ' 
said his host, 'and for God's sake be quick about it!' 

"Colonel Hynes ran up the stairs, explained the situa- 
tion to the startled invalid, slit with his knife the feather 
mattress she was lying on, crept into it, and, although 
the soldiers knew he was in the house, no trace of him 
could be found. But there is something in mental 
telepathy, for, notwithstanding that every inch of 
every room was searched, the captain of the soldiers 
insisted on the lady's bedroom door being left open and 
stationed two men in the hall. There they sat for 
forty-eight hours, the prisoner never moving and 
scarcely breathing. At the end of that time the 
soldiers left the house and camped in the garden. The 
host said, 'Now what am I to do?' 'Give a party,* 
said Colonel Hynes. " Get me a suit of evening clothes 
and I '11 shave off my beard and walk past the guard, 
and he '11 never know me. * And he made his escape 
just as he said." 

Judge Humphrey and his wife and daughters have 
the good fortune to live on the River Road. Years 
ago the old Fincastle Club, standing in solitary state, 
was for sale; being roomy and spacious they bought 
and transformed it into a delightful house. Now they 



346 My Beloved South 

have a number of neighbours, Mrs. Avery Robinson, 
Mrs. Thurston Ballard, Mrs. Tom Smith, Mrs. Charles 
Ballard, and a large contingent of Louisville people live 
on the green hills overlooking the Ohio, which on its 
way to the Mississippi runs between green fields on the 
one side and lovely undulating hills covered with ver- 
dure on the other. Cedar, cotton, pine, and maple 
trees give ample shade, and the views are wide and 
varied. In the happy days of May, I stood on a noble 
crest which had been levelled and blossomed in the 
earliest flowers of spring. Beds of pale lemon, deep 
purple, and parti-coloured heartsease outlined lilies of 
the valley, while pink and yellow tulips lifted their 
tender heads, and down the emerald hills, like amber 
water, trickled many golden daffodils. On the level of 
the land ran the River Road like a golden-brown riband, 
and the river, blue from the reflection of the sky above, 
flowed swiftly between its green banks to the sea. As 
the gorgeous sunset poured its golden glamour over all 
things near and far, the summit of the distant hills 
blazed with colour. Rich amber, prismatic opal, 
misty blue, pearl and violet shone resplendent, until 
the sinking sun co-mingled them all in a lake of deepest, 
purest, transparent rose. Then, regretfully, the lam- 
bent twilight descended, turning the rose into a fiery 
purple, and the mantle of night enfolded the River 
Road in soft embrace. 

Barbour came out on the terrace and said, "We must 
go to Frankfort to-morrow to see Mrs. Wilson." 
"Yes," I said, "I want to see Hoodie again. We 
have n't met since we were both sixteen. Her father. 
General Ekin, was then stationed in Texas. She was a 
charming girl." "She is a charming woman," Bar- 
bour said ; "you won't be disappointed in her. " 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 347 

Next day, Governor Wilson, a frank, cordial man, 
met us at the station in Frankfort and we walked to the 
Executive Mansion, such a dear old-fashioned, comfort- 
able Southern house. The floors of the large rooms 
were covered with white matting. There were com- 
fortable chairs, plenty of books, magazines, and news- 
papers, and a noble blue-and-white drawing-room. 
The plans are drawn for a splendid new house opposite 
the Capitol, but will anybody enjoy it as much as the 
old one, I wonder? 

Mrs. Wilson, an agreeable and hospitable woman, gave 
me a warm welcome. Through all the years she had 
never forgotten me. But after we had talked for a 
while she said it was hard to reconcile Betty Paschal, 
the girl who danced in Texas, danced in New Orleans, 
and danced in Washington, the teetotum in fact, with 
the grey-haired lady seeking information about politics, 
tobacco, trusts, corn, and cattle. I said: " Solomon, you 
know, mentioned that there was 'A time to weep, a 
time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a lime to dance; a 
time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones.'" 

"Well, at any rate," said she, "it is plain to see you 
are gathering information. You won't have to dance 
to-night, only to talk to a party of twelve at dinner. 
And it 's time for you to dress. Don't let my maid 
bother you with too much conversation. She means 
well, poor soul, but her mother died in a lunatic asylum 
and I 'm afraid she 's going the same way." We had 
a few minutes together before the guests arrived and 
Hoodie said the butler had no footman to assist him, 
but was so quick and capable that no matter how many 
there were to wait upon he was equal to the occasion. 
"How lucky you are to get him!" I said. "Where did 
he come from?" 



348 My Beloved South 

"The Penitentiary," said Mrs. Wilson. 

"A convict?" I asked. 

"Yes," laughed Mrs. Wilson, "but nothing vulgar, 
my dear Betty, like thieving. It was jealousy." 

"Do you know," I said, "he 's awfully like Salvini 
in Othello. Did he smother her?" 

"No," said Mrs. Wilson, "he told her to stay at 
home and forbade her to go out and meet her lover. 
She defied him, got as far as the door, and he shot her, 
and nearly died of grief afterwards. He is only a ticket- 
of -leave man, but he is an inestimable treasure as a 
butler." 

And with any number of courses at dinner, we were 
not more than an hour and a quarter at table. That 
tall, fine-looking Moor — I 'm certain he is a Moor and 
probably came from the colony in New Jersey where the 
negroes are proud of their Moorish descent — was as 
quick as lightning. The glasses of the guests were kept 
well filled, and he was quite equal to three ordinary 
waiters. After the guests had departed I said to 
Hoodie: "If it had been possible to loot the table to- 
night, I should have taken Mrs. Berry's beautiful hair, 
Mrs. Scott's old gorgeously painted Spanish fan, Mary 
Mason Scott's bunch of pearl grapes with diamond 
leaves, and your husband. " 

"Oh," said Hoodie, "you would n't take my husband 
away from me, Betty?" 

I replied: "There 's no danger. You *ve got him; he 
would n't come. " 

"I don't know," said Hoodie; "I Ve brought him up 
to adore you," and with this charming^compliment I 
went to bed. 

"Are you," said Barbour, calling from her room 
adjoining mine, "enjoying yourself?" 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 349 

"Yes," I said, "I 'm entirely happy." 

"Well," said Barbour, "you like adventure. It 
is n't everybody who is waited on by a lunatic and a 
murderer!" 

The next morning was spent at the New State Capitol 
which occupies a beautiful situation on a sloping hill, 
overlooking green valleys and the Kentucky River. The 
architecture is noble and impressive and the interior 
simple and good. Governor Wilson chose the furnish- 
ing, and though he says he knows nothing of art, he has 
made no mistakes. Men are so often wise in rejecting 
too much detail and over-ornamentation, and there is 
nothing so completely satisfactory as a fine simplicity. 
We went into the Governor's room. He was full of in- 
formation and possessed any amount of local literature. 

" Do you know, " he said, handing me a leaflet, " this 
song in praise of Kentucky? " 

" Know'st thou the land where the corn tassels bloom. 
Where the mystical cocktail exhales its perfume, 
Where the high-balls sparkle with flavour divine, 
And the 'Schooners' sail fast 'neath the shade of the vine? 
Know'st thou that land, that beautiful land? 

"Know'st thou the land where the Julep was born. 
Where the mint yields its breast to the spirit of corn, 
Where the ice strikes the glass with a musical sound. 
And the straw shrieks aloud when the bottom is found? 
Know'st thou that land, that beautiful land? 

"Hear'st thou the call of the Blue-grass to thee? 
Come over the river, come Southward to me, 
Where a welcome awaits from Kentucky's old boys, 
Oh, come to that South land and taste of her joys! 
Oh, come to that land, that beautiful land! 



350 My Beloved South 

"Know'st not that land? Then thou art unlucky. 
'T is gallant, 't is brave, 't is hearty Kentucky, 
That calls from the River that flows to the Sea, 
Come Southward to meet us, cross over and see. 
Oh, come to that land, that beautiful land!" 

"I don't believe," I said, "that even Kentucky 
cocktails are better than those in Virginia. " 

"Maybe not," replied the Governor; "Virginia is 
just across the river. Here 's something else for you. " 

And he gave me a little book, Kentucky Arbour and 
Bird Day. 

I read the "Arbour Day Proclamation " while he and 
Barbour talked. 

ARBOUR DAY PROCLAMATION 

To the People of Kentucky: 

It takes a long, long time during the lives of several 
people for a tree to grow great. It takes only a little while 
to kill it. We have wasted hundreds of millions of trees 
that it took more than one hundred years to grow. We are 
using millions of trees every year now and putting nothing 
in their place. We ought to plant more trees than we are 
using every year. We have millions of acres of lands that 
will not grow anything else but trees, and we could cover 
them all with trees. We have bare places along the roads 
and in the streets and in the yards and on the farms every- 
where, that will not be used for buildings or crops or any- 
thing else, where trees could be planted that would make 
those who come after us rich, and would make the face of the 
earth beautiful for us. 

Let us all get together and all plant trees and all ask 
everybody else to plant trees, and let us have a special 
meeting on the 8th day of April, 1910, in every schoolhouse 
and other good places for meetings, to talk over how to have 
more trees, how to make every place more beautiful, how 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 351 

to plant, how to save something for the people fifty years 
from now who won't have any wood if we do not do some- 
thing about it, how to put some of our prayers for blessings 
to come to people, hereafter in living shape, by starting 
trees that will answer our own prayers. 

Let us plant trees for ourselves and for all whom we love. 
Let us plant trees for the future and for this year and next 
year and every year. Let us plant trees for profit, for 
gladness, for beauty, for conversation, for storage of the 
rain water, for houses and furniture, for everything for 
which we use wood, for our own sake, for our children's sake, 
for our grandchildren's sake, and for humanity's sake. 

Augustus E. Wilson, 

Governor of Kentucky. 

March 10, 1910. 

"What an enchanting idea to make the interest in 
birds, trees, and flowers a tangible thing," I said. As 
I turned the leaves of the book and dipped into it here 
and there, delightful woodland scraps of information 
met my eye. 

"interesting facts about trees." 

The largest tree in the world is the great chestnut tree at 
the foot of Mount Etna which is called ' 'Chestnut Tree of a 
Hundred Horses," and is thought to be one of the oldest 
trees in existence. Five enormous branches rise from one 
great trunk, which is two hundred and twelve feet in cir- 
cumference. A part of the trunk has been broken away and 
through its interior, which is hollow, two carriages can be 
driven abreast. 

The costliest tree in the world is the plane tree growing in 
Wood Street, London, England, occupying a space which, 
but for its being there, would bring in a rental of $1500 a 
year, and this, capitalised at thirty years' purchase, gives 
value of $45,000. 



352 My Beloved South 

How often I 've been to Wood Street and have never 
seen this plane tree. One of my first journeys will be 
to make its acquaintance on my return to dear smoky 
London. 

In Terra Bonne Parish, Louisiana, the largest orange 
tree in the South grows. It is fifty feet high and fifteen 
feet in circumference at the base, and has often yielded 
10,000 oranges per season. 

To own one tree like this would mean happiness. 

"Summer or winter, day or night, 
The woods are ever a new delight; 
They give us peace and they make us strong, 
Such wonderful balms to them belong; 
So, living or dying, I 11 take mine ease 
Under the trees, under the trees. " 

"debate" 

"White Oak Group" 

White Oak. 
Bur Oak. 
Chestnut Oak. 
Overcup Oak. 
Post Oak. 
Cow Oak. 
Live Oak. 

A special talk topic — the commercial value of the oak 
galls. The oldest document in America was written with 
ink made from oak galls, and is practically indelible. 

The oak in literature. Reading: Phocius, Lowell. 
Selections: Thoreau, Browning. 

" I hear the wind among the trees 
Play celestial harmonies. " 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 353 

How wholesome, cheerful, comforting and healthy is the 
love of trees and flowers, for — 



" Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her. *T is her privilege 
Through all the years of this one life to lead 
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us." 

"There is no unbelief. 
Who ever plants a seed beneath the sod 
And waits to see it push away the clod 
Trusts in God." 

"We must not hope to be mowers, 

And to gather the ripe, golden ears. 
Unless we first have been sowers 

And watered the flowers with tears. 
It is not just as we take it. 

This wonderful world of ours, 
Life's field will yield as we make it, 

A harvest of thorns or of flowers." 



And I read for the first time Oliver Herford's charm- 
ing lines on the origin of violets : 

"I know, blue modest violets, 
Gleaming with dew at morn, 
I know the place you come from 
And the way that you are born. 

"When God cut holes in Heaven, 
The holes the stars look through. 
He let the scraps fall down to earth, 
The little scraps are you." 

93 



354 My Beloved South 

Turning a few pages, I came upon an appreciation of 
birds, beginning with those joyous lines: 

"His gentle- joyful song I heard, 
Now see if you can tell, my dear, 
What bird it is that every year, 
Sings, 'sweet! sweet! sweet! very merry cheer.'" 

And Edgar Fawcett's colourful ode on the Baltimore 
oriole with his rainbow tints and his velvet song : 

"At some glad moment was it Nature's choice, 
To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice? 
Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black. 
In some forgotten garden ages back, 
Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, 
Desire unspeakably to be a bird?" 

Then came Henry Van Dyke's " Robin's Song " : 

" This is the carol the robin throws 
Over the edge of the valley; 
Listen how boldly it flows, 
Sally on sally: 

Tirra-lirra, 

Down the river, 

Laughing water 

All a-quiver. 

Day is near, 

Clear, clear, 

Fish are breaking, 

Time for waking. 

Tup, tup, tup! 

Do you hear? 

All clear — 

Wake up!" 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 355 

Barbour said: "Would you mind discontinuing the 
reading of your book and saying good-bye to Governor 
Wilson? You can finish it in the train." 

My visit to Frankfort was all too short, but I wanted 
to get to the Blue Grass Country, and see for myself 
if the grass was really blue, and truly it was, for the 
luscious juice makes it thick, dark, and heavy enough 
to cast shadows of blue over the shimmer of green. No 
wonder with such nutritious food the Blue Grass region 
produces splendid horses, ponies, cows, and sheep. 
We visited the fancy farm of Mr. Haggin and met 
whole regiments of cows walking at milking-time into 
their white marble stalls, where they were washed, 
curried, and apparently manicured. And at Castlewood 
we saw the splendid farms and stables and stroked the 
noses of the soft, silky, bright-eyed colts, which will 
probably in the future make celebrated race horses. 
On another smaller farm there were dozens of sturdy, 
shaggy little Shetland ponies being clipped and beauti- 
fied for the market. The day before I left that wonder- 
ful rich grass region, it rained from early morning until 
misty evening, and looking out on the drenched garden 
I remembered Madison Cawein's "Grey Day." 

" Long vollies of wind and of rain 
And the rain on the drizzled pane 

And the eve falls chill and murk; 
But on yesterday's eve, I know 
How a horned moon's thorn-like bow 
Stabbed rosy thro' gold and thro' glow, 

Like a rich barbaric dirk. 

" Now thick throats of the snapdragons — 
Who hold in their hues cool dawns 
Which a healthy yellow paints — 



356 My Beloved South 

Are filled with a sweet rain fine, 
Of a jaunty, jubilant shine, 
A faery vat of rare wine. 

Which the honey thinly taints. 



" Now dabble the poppies shrink, 
And the coxcomb and the pink. 

While the candytuft's damp crown 
Droops dribbled, low-bowed in the wet. 
And long spikes o' the mignonette 
Like musk-sacks open set. 

While the dripping o' dew drags down, 

" Stretched taut on the blades of grass, 
Like a gossamer-fibred glass 

Which the garden spider spun. 
The web, where the round rain clings 
In its middle sagging, swings; 
A hammock for Elfin things 

Where the stars succeed the sun. 

'* Yet I feel that the grey will blow 
Aside for an afterglow; 

And a breeze on a sudden, toss 
Drenched boughs to a pattering show'r 
Athwart the red dusk in a glow'r. 
Big drops heard hard on each flow'r, 

On the grass and the flowering moss. 

" And then, for a minute, maybe — 
A pearl — hollow-worn — of the sea — 

A glimmer of moon will smile ; 
Cool stars rinsed clean o' the dusk; 
A freshness of gathering musk 
O'er the showery lawns, as brusk 
As spice from an Indian Isle." 



Gallant, Brave, Hearty Kentucky 357 

And at last when the rain ceased, I wrapped a shawl 
round me, and went out to look at the " Cool stars rinsed 
clean," to breathe the soft, light, fragrant air, and to 
gather a posy of carnations, mignonette, and rosemary 
in sweet remembrance, for this was my last night in 
Kentucky. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

A VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

They declare that I 'm gracefully pretty, 

The very best waltzer that whirls; 
They say I am sparkling and witty, 

The pearl, the queen-rose-bud of girls, 
But, alas, for the popular blindness! 

Its judgment, though folly, can hurt; 
Since my heart, that runs over with kindness, 

It vows is the heart of a flirt ! 

Hayne. 

MY first day in Richmond was almost as busy and as 
full of change as one of "Old Reliable's" days. 
I got up early and a friend called to go with me to 
select a hat. We saw one in a window and I said, 
" That 's what I want. " We went in, I tried it on, and 
bought it. From the moment we left the hotel until 
the hat was mine only ten minutes elapsed. After 
that we walked down a beautiful street, where a noted 
belle once lived, who, in Southern fashion, was secretly 
engaged to three men at the same time. 

"They all lived in different towns," my friend said, 
"but belonged to the same club in Richmond. Fate 
brought them together one night, and under the in- 
fluence of mint juleps of a particular concoction and 
strength they became confidential, and finally found 
out that each one had the same sweetheart. They 

358 



A Virginia Gentleman 359 

resolved upon a plan of action, and determined to teach 
her a lesson, so next morning they all went together to 
call upon her. She entered the parlour looking so 
beautiful and fresh in her white muslin dress and little 
white shoes, that each man forgave her and hoped he 
was the fortunate one. The spokesman hesitated and 
stuttered, and, looking at her corn-flower blue eyes and 
crown of golden hair, he altered the severity of his speech 
and said, ' We are all engaged to you, and we all love you 
desperately, and we have all come to ask, with charity 
to all and malice to none, which one of us is it to be?' 

"She looked very mischievous but at the same time 
very tender, and said: 'Well, gentlemen, there is a 
fourth. I have been ficklewise, but please forgive me. 
This time I am in love. ' 

"'May we,' said the spokesman, 'ask who is the 
happy fourth?' 

"'Yes,' she said, 'he is John Gates.' 

"'The Dev — I beg your pardon,' said the second 
lover. 'This is a surprise. Do you think you will 
make a good clergyman's wife? ' 

"'It'll never do,' said the spokesman. 'You are 
a professional beauty, and professional beauties never 
marry clergymen. It is n't done.' 

"*I am going to do it,' she said. 

"'And,' said the third lover, who was rich, 'John 's 
poor.' 

" She flushed up and said : ' I 'd marry him if he had n't 
a picayune.' 

"'Then,' said the spokesman, 'it 's the real article.' 

"'Yes,' she said softly, 'it 's just — Love.' 

"Then they all wished her joy and went away. 
When they got outside the spokesman said: 'Well, 
that 's a blow to my vanity. I 'm six-foot-two, and 



36o My Beloved South 

I 've got money. John Gates is a little insignificant 
creature, and, by Jove, she 's not only going to marry 
him, but she 's gone on him!' 

"The second lover said: 'You can't count on women; 
they fall in love with queer chaps.' 

"The third lover said: 'Have you heard about Nelly 
Smith? You know she 's been a belle for years, she 
must be thirty-five. The other night Tom Ridgely 
kissed her, and she looked at him as innocent as a baby, 
and said, " Do you know you are the first man that ever 
kissed me?" He said: "And you are the first woman I 
ever kissed. Will you marry me?" "No," she said, 
"I don't want to marry a liar." He said, "I don't 
know that I do either. " ' " 

"And," I asked, "did the beauty ever marry the 
preacher?" 

"Oh yes," said my friend, "she made a model clergy- 
man's wife and had nine children, four beautiful 
daughters and five sons. For many years she kept her 
looks and her extraordinary charm. Her husband is a 
bishop now. " 

"And what became of Nelly Smith and Tom 
Ridgely?" I asked. 

"They got tired of being witty and got married too, " 
said my friend. 

We walked a little way down Franklin Street, to see 
the old Lee mansion, a fine roomy house now occupied 
by the Historical Society. The Jewish tabernacle, with 
its great Moorish dome, glistened in the bright sunlight, 
and the long avenue of trees were in their earliest 
freshest dress of brilliant spring green. 

My friend said: "This street reminds me that 
yesterday morning I met a negro girl here who had 
been a former maid of ours and had left us to get 



A Virginia Gentleman 361 

married. I stopped her and said: 'Howdy, Jemima; 
is that your baby?' 'Yes Miss Mary, he 's my chile.' 
'And what's his name?' I asked. 'Hallowed,' she 
said. ' Hallowed! I don't think I ever heard it,' I said. 
* Why, yes, you is, Miss Mary, it 's tole us in de Lord's 
Prayer, " Hallowed be Thy name." Mary added, 
'Jemima had no idea of irreverence.'" 

I laughed, and then my memory wandered back to 
poor little Joe, in Bleak House, who, when dying, 
faltered, "Hallowed be —Thy— dead." 

"The light is come upon the dark benighted way. " 
May the light shine upon the dark benighted way of 
the little piccaninny called in reverent absurdity, 
"Hallowed." 

My friend left me at the door of the Jefferson hotel, 
where I found Rosewell Page, my good friend of many 
years, waiting to wander about with me and show me 
Richmond of the present. I remembered it well in the 
past, for I spent three months there as a little girl with 
Mrs. Canby, when some years after the war her 
husband was in command of the military post. In the 
afternoon the General and I often used to go long 
walks together, and he loved to stand before the beauti- 
ful old Capitol, whose noble architecture gave him 
extreme pleasure. 

"You see here, Betty," he would say, "the result 
of knowledge. Jefferson was a good classical scholar, 
and he suggested as a model of the Capitol the maison 
carree of Nismes, an old Roman temple, and those 
old fellows who first made history there lived them- 
selves up to the tradition of Roman Senators. At the 
Constitutional Convention of 1829-30, the two former 
Presidents of the United States, James Madison and 
James Monroe, and one future President, John Tyler, 



362 My Beloved South 

with Chief -Justice Marshall, Philip Pendleton Barbour, 
Benjamin Watkins Lee, and a number of illustrious 
men framed laws for the Constitution of the country. 
The illuminating idea of universal suffrage was born and 
went forth from behind those Ionic columns." 

Another point of interest for us was the equestrian 
statue of General Washington surrounded by his 
famous advisers — Thomas Jefferson, the author of the 
Declaration of Independence ; Chief- Justice John Mar- 
shall, who, my father always said, was almost the 
greatest lawyer that ever lived; Thomas Nelson, a 
diplomat by instinct, and a force in bringing the war of 
the Revolution to a successful close ; Patrick Henry, the 
impassioned orator and leader of the Revolution; 
George Mason, another great jurist and the author of 
the Virginia Bill of Rights; and Andrew Lewis, whom 
General Washington considered a military genius. 

"I tell you what it is, Betty," General Canby said 
regretfully, "this war of brothers has been one of the 
most terrible things in history. Politicians made it, 
soldiers fought and deplored it, but it is something to 
have kept the Stars and Stripes — the flag of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson — floating and inviolate over an un- 
divided Union to the last. Virginia has a better right 
to it than anybody else, and she will come back loyally 
under its proud folds some day. Just now she is sick 
and sore, but the grandsons of these brave Confederate 
soldiers will even rejoice over her defeat. I sometimes 
see an old friend in the street who refuses to speak to 
me, but I can't blame him." And the General sighed, 
for he had a tender, generous heart, and Mrs. Canby, a 
Southern woman, was filled with grief over the desola- 
tion of the South. 

There was one native Virginian at Richmond who 



A Virginia Gentleman 363 

had no feeling against the Yankees. He was the pet 
coon of one of the ofBcers of General Canby's staff, who 
had named him Aaraaf, from Poe's fantastic poem of 
"Al Aaraaf." He used to say: "I found him 

" * High on a mountain of enamell'd head — 
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed 
Of giant pasturage, lying at his ease. 
Raising his heavy eyelids, starts and sees.'" 

He had almost stepped on him while on a hunting 
expedition, on the plateau of a Blue Ridge mountain — 
a little soft, fluffy ball. He was such an amiable, tame 
coon, a fat grey and black beauty. Not having to 
forage for food, and always eating of the best — his 
favourite dish being oysters — his coat was beautiful, 
and his bright furtive eyes, widely surrounded by black 
circles, gave him quite a theatrical appearance. The 
wild animal had apparently been completely eliminated 
from Aaraaf, and like a dog he followed his master all 
over the barracks. If fortune ever smiles upon me and 
my vision is realised of a little home in Virginia, I, too, 
will have an Aaraaf. 

It was in Richmond that I first met Mrs. Canby's 
friend, Mary Crook, the wife of General George Crook, 
the famous fighter of the Indians, who stopped on her 
way East for a little visit, and before she left our life- 
long unbroken friendship was formed, although I did 
not see her again for many years. 

"Where," said Rosewell Page, "shall we go first?" 

"To the old Capitol," I said. "Let me refresh my 
eyes with its unforgotten stately beauty." 

"All right," said Rosewell, "then we will spend an 
hour inside and take a look at the State Library, " 

The statue of Washington by Houdon, which occu- 



364 My Beloved South 

pies the Rotunda of the State Capitol, is America's 
most precious possession. I love the way that Jeffer- 
son wrote to the Virginia Delegation of Congress after 
he had selected the sculptor — " He is the finest statuary 
of his age." Houdon was four months at Mount 
Vernon, from October, 1785, until January in 1786, 
consequently he had ample time and opportunity to 
study the face and physique of Washington, who treated 
with equal justice and courtesy both artist and states- 
man. He wrote in 1785 to a friend: 

"In for a penny on for a pound" is an old adage. I am 
so hackneyed to the touch of the painter's pencil that I 'm 
now altogether at their beck, and sit "like patience on a 
monument," whilst they are delineating the lines on my 
face. It is a proof among many others of what habit and 
custom can accomplish. At first I was as impatient at the 
request and as restive under the operation, as a colt is of 
the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly 
but with less flouncing. Now, no dray horse moves more 
readily to the thills than I to the painter's chair. 

The figure is life-size, dressed in the Continental 
uniform; the hair is worn in a queue, and the face is 
proud, noble, and full of benignity and sweet reason- 
ableness. But the mouth has the same firm grip of a 
death trap that I have noticed in the mouth of Parnell, 
Napoleon, and General Grant, a sort of tight-shut final- 
ity of expression that means "no yielding here." The 
figure is beautifully proportioned, but the General was 
either slightly inclined to embonpoint, or the waistcoat 
was ill-fitting. This was probably the case, as he sent 
for his "cloaths" to a London tailor, who evidently 
had no exact measurement, as Washington wrote in 
1763: 



A Virginia Gentleman 365 

Take measure of a gentleman who wares well-made 
cloaths of the following size: to wit, six feet high and pro- 
portionable made — if anything, rather slender than thick 
for a person of that height, with pretty long arms and 
thighs. You will take care to make the breeches longer 
than those you sent me last, and I would have you keep 
the measure of the cloaths you now make by you, and if 
any alteration is required in my next it shall be pointed out. 

My Mammy used to say, Straight legs for a dandy, 
bowlegs for a cavalry man, and knock-knees for nothin'. 
The General's legs were not only those of a "dandy," 
but were exquisitely tapering and rounded. Many a 
chorus girl would envy such a perfection, and the 
breeches fitted his graceful legs without a wrinkle. 

Facing the statue are the busts of two later Virginia 
soldiers. General Fitzhugh Lee and General J, E. B. 
Stuart, the musical soldier of the Confederate army. 
He had a beautiful voice, and Joe Swinney, one of his 
soldiers, used to go often to his tent and play on his 
banjo the accompaniment of "Way down upon the 
Suwanee River" and other popular Southern songs of 
the day. He loved in the twilight to sing "Lorena, " 
''Juanita," "Maryland, My Maryland," and with his 
soldiers, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." 

Rosewell wanted to show me the warming machine 
bought by Lord Bottetourt when Governor of Virginia, 
as a present to the House of Representatives. He 
died before it was finished, and it was finally sent to 
America by his son, the Duke of Beaufort. It was 
made in England by Buzalo, a famous stove maker with 
artistic ideals (for the lines are good and the stove is of 
fine proportions), who was evidently an Italian or of 
Italian extraction. 

"Now," I said, "enough of the past for the moment. 



366 My Beloved South 

Let us go and see Mr. Koiner, the Commissioner of 
Agriculture." 

After our introduction, Mr. Koiner said: "I've 
recently been in your country, Mrs. O'Connor, and 
found the English people most hospitable and eager to 
assist me. " 

"Is there," I said, "an opening for all classes of 
settlers in Virginia, and do you help and advise them?" 

"Yes," said Mr. Koiner, "of course we do. Ask 
Mr. Page there his experience of us. " 

"I came one spring morning," said Rose well, "at 
my wits' end to find a gardener, and asked Mr. Koiner 
if he knew of one. He said : ' I 've an Englishman who 
has been in the building only five minutes, perhaps 
he will do.' I interviewed him, and ten minutes later 
we had boarded a car for Beaver Dam and the man, 
a competent gardener and an excellent servant, has 
now been with me for four years. According to my 
Virginian upbringing I use the ' broad A , ' and he said 
to me on my way to the country, 'I see you speak 
Henglish, sir.' And I think from that moment he 
approved of me. " 

"Yes," said Mr. Koiner, "we have plenty of room 
here in our land and in our hearts for the English. " 

"And why not?" said Rosewell. "Our good begin- 
ning was from the English, who settled Jamestown over 
three hundred years ago. The language of the whole 
American Republic is English, although we are accused 
by our English cousins of speaking Americanese. But, 
after all, the home of the English and Scotch is in Vir- 
ginia. The names our heroes bear are English; a 
preponderance of our counties have English names: 
Portsmouth, Norfolk, Manchester, Charlottesville, 
Bristol, Sussex, Surrey, Stafford, Southampton, New 



A Virginia Gentleman 367 

Kent County, King George County, King and Queen 
County, Isle of Wight County, Chesterfield County. 
This very city is named after Richmond-on-Thames, 
while General Lee's birthplace was Stratford in West- 
moreland County. " 

"It 's all quite English," I said, "but of course, the 
brains, the statesmanship, the soldiery, and the military 
genius of the Scotch and English of the Old Dominion 
and their lineal descendants have made America the 
nation she is to-day." 

Mr. Koiner smiled. "Are you a Virginian?" he 
asked. 

"No," I said, "I am a Texan, but I have a claim 
upon Virginia, for my great-grandfather and my grand- 
father were Virginians. I see that Richmond has 
graciously named a street and a place ' Duval ' in honour 
of my great-grandfather. But you, who have studied 
the question, tell me why Virginia offers the best 
opportunity for the English settler of to-day?" 

"Well," said Mr. Koiner, "for the man who wants a 
mild climate and sunshine, Virginia gives the oppor- 
tunity of going out every day in comfort, with none of 
the extremes of heat or cold that prevail in less favoured 
localities. Her geographical position destines her to 
become one of the richest states in the Union. Located 
midway between the North and the South, she escapes 
the cold winters of the North and the hot summers of 
the extreme South. And then her soils are so varied; 
they easily furnish blue grass and all other pasture 
grasses for cattle and sheep. We are now shipping 
direct from the pasture to England. Piedmont grows 
beautiful fruit, and Albemarle County and Patrick and 
a dozen other counties are famous for apples. Tobacco, 
peanuts, and cotton all grow in Middle Virginia." 



368 My Beloved South 

"Don't forget, Mr. Koiner," said Rosewell, "the 
eastern boundary of the State where last year the truck 
farms made about fifteen miUion dollars. Com, wheat, 
and oats grow, of course, almost anywhere in the State, 
and the Valley is now taking prizes in every county 
fair for its fine apples." 

"And, " said Mr. Koiner, "one great and inestimable 
advantage of Virginia is that the land is so well watered. 
No one thinks of fencing in a field without one or two 
springs. On the average, there are half a dozen or more 
springs on every square mile in Virginia. The Blue 
Ridge Mountains, running north and south through the 
entire State, bubble with mineral waters which have 
not even yet been fully developed. " 

Rosewell said: "I am something of a farmer and 
know that Virginia can grow almost every crop. Stock- 
raising is improving, and the breed of cattle and horses 
is finer every year. The long growing season and the 
kindness of the soil furnish natural grasses for the cattle 
and that is a great aid and benefit to the farmer. " 

I got up to go and Mr. Koiner followed us to the 
Farmers' Hall of Exhibits. Beautiful wax apples in 
glass cases, reproductions of the originals, were sus- 
pended from real branches. There were splendid 
pyramids of perfect corn, golden and wine-coloured. 
Specimens of giant peanuts. Monster sweet potatoes, 
huge wax canteloupes, and enormous watermelons 
weighing from thirty to fifty pounds. 

Mr. Koiner said, pointing to some lovely fruit, " Now, 
is n't that branch of apples a work of art on the part of 
nature?" 

I replied : " It is indeed ; but give me the name of some 
particular Englishman who has succeeded in farming in 
Virginia." 



A Virginia Gentleman 369 

"I will," said Mr. Koiner, "give you the names of 
two — Mr. James Bellwood, an Englishman in Chester- 
field County, came here from Canada. He is one of the 
leading farmers of the State and owns three farms 
amounting to about two thousand acres. He keeps 
from eighty to a hundred head of dairy fowls, one of the 
best large herds in the State, and he is an energetic, 
wide-awake, public-spirited citizen and an authority on 
agriculture. He had a special yield of one hundred 
and sixty bushels of corn on one acre last year, and his 
entire crop from eighty acres yielded a hundred bushels 
per acre. Then there is Mr. O. D. Belding, a Scotch- 
man, who owns a farm of twenty-five acres on the James 
River at Claremont. Five out of the twenty-five acres 
are waste land; three are kept in pasture, and the re- 
maining seventeen are in constant cultivation. When 
Mr. Belding took this farm fifteen years ago, he was 
without means and was forced to ' hire out' a part of his 
first year to meet current expenses. What this little 
farm has produced is best shown by the buildings which 
he has erected from his profits. Wait a moment, and I 
will go back and get a list from my office. " 

"Just look," I said to Rosewell, "at that wonderful 
bird of the forest the wild turkey, in this case. He 
stands there with his head erect like an Indian warrior, 
and his perfect plumage is bronze in the high lights and 
black in the shadows, and the broad tips of his tail and 
wings are opaline, with a satiny sheen of orange, green, 
purple, and white. Is n't he a raving beauty?" 

"You," said Rosewell, "are as enthusiastic about 
the wild turkey as Benjamin Franklin. You know he 
wanted him for our national bird instead of the eagle. " 

"If ever I have a home in Virginia," I said, "Mr. 
T. A. Green of Hemlock Hill Farm in Michigan has 
34 



370 My Beloved South 

promised me half-a-dozen turkeys. He has a famous 
breed, and one monarch, weighing seventy poimds, has 
travelled to various fairs in different States and taken 
all sorts of first prizes. " 

"This," said Mr. Koiner, returning, "is a list of what 
Mr. Belding has built from his profits " : 

An excellent and convenient house. 

A large barn, well arranged for stock, grain, and hay. 

Two good silos, one made of cement blocks. 

A good potato cellar, with two-storey granary above it. 

A good tool shed, automobile house, and a corn crib. 

A large wood-house and a large coal-frame. 

"He has also purchased the following machinery": 

Ensilage cutter, 5 h. p. gasoline engine, small threshing 

machine. 
Acme riding barrow, potato planter, cream separator. 
Sulky plough, buggy, automobile, and other implements. 

" He has made an average crop of six tons per acre in 
alfalfa, and his corn crop always averages one hundred 
bushels per acre and has gone as high as one hundred 
and fifty. This shows what can be done on a small 
Virginia farm." 

"I should like," I said, "to meet Mr. Belding. 
Good-bye, and thank you for all your information." 

"Here is a hand-book of Virginia," said Mr. Koiner. 
" Don't forget that we will give you a warm welcome if 
you settle among us, that the soil is kind, the people 
kinder, and that with a good manager you can prosper 
on a little farm near a market. " 

"Now," said Rosewell, "just take a peep in at the 
State library, where you will see a Caxton in good 
condition, bound in cowhide and horn. And there are 



A Virginia Gentleman 371 

some portraits that will interest you. One is of 
Governor Alexander Spottswood, who led an exploring 
party beyond the Blue Ridge, mounted on the first 
horses shod in Virginia. On his return he dubbed them 
'Knights of the golden horseshoes,' and presented each 
one with a horseshoe of gold as a memento of the 
expedition." 

"Yes," I said, "and how charmingly Mary John- 
stone uses that incident in A udrey. " 

Then we looked at the portraits of the Earl of Dun- 
more, Thomas Jefferson, and Rochambeau. I remem- 
bered seeing as a child an old portrait of Pocahontas, 
and I asked the custodian where it hung. He led us to 
it, saying, "Here she is in her court dress." But the 
costume, a brilliant jacket of silk and velvet, with a 
lace collar and a high hat, is for the morning. The 
picture was copied in 1891 by W. L. Shepherd, the 
original being in possession of the Reverend Whitwall 
Elwin, rector of a Boston parish, and a writer and 
editor of repute. He told Mr. Shepherd that no ques- 
tion as to the authenticity of the portrait had ever been 
raised. There is documentary proof of its having been 
in charge of that branch of the Rolfe connection since 
1730. The physiological evidence is convincing; the 
high cheek bones, the nose with the broad base, the 
suggestion of the stolidity of her race, are conclusive 
proofs of its having been taken from life. The com- 
plexion is considerably lighter than that of the North 
American Indian as we know him, and the hands are 
much lighter in colour than the face. The picture 
records that she was "^tatis May 27, 1616, Matoaks 
als Rebekkah, daughter to the mighty Prince Powhatan, 
Emperor of Attanoughkomouk, als Virginia, converted 
and baptised in the Christian faith, and wife to the 



372 My Beloved South 

Hon'U Mr. Thos. Rolfe — from the original of Boston 
Rectory, Norfolk, England." The Parish Register of 
Gravesend Church, England, has also this entry: 
" Rebecca Wrolfe, wyffe of Thos. Wrolfe Gen. a Virginia 
lady born ; was buried in ye chancel. " What a singular 
thing that the mistake should have been made, of calling 
her husband Thomas instead of John. 

But in all the library nothing interested or touched 
me so much as a neatly- written, gracious letter of Poe's: 

Philadelphia, March 24, 1843. 
My dear Sir : 

With this letter I mail to your address a number of the 
Philadelphia Saturday Museum, containing a Prospectus of 
The Stylus, a Magazine which I design to commence on 
the first of July next, in connection with Mr. Thomas C. 
Clark, of this city. 

My object in addressing you is to ascertain if the list of 
The South : Lit : Messenger is to be disposed of, and if so, 
upon what terms. We are anxious to purchase the liet 
and unite it with that of The Stylus provided a suitable 
arrangement can be made. I shall be happy to hear from 
you upon the subject. 

1 hear of you occasionally, and most sincerely hope that 
you are doing well. Mrs. Clemm and Virginia desire to be 
remembered to our old acquaintances. 

Believe me. 

Yours truly, 

Edgar A. Poe, 

The handwriting is rather small, clear, steady, grace- 
ful, with no slightest indication of nervousness or hesi- 
tancy. I stood looking a long time at it, and Rosewell 
said, "Are you a student of Poe?" 

" I cannot call myself a student of anything, " I said, 
"but I love Poe. What a pity that he Hved in the 



A Virginia Gentleman 373 

wrong generation ! He was one of those restless spirits, 
too eager to be born, of whom Maeteriinck gives us a 
gHmpse. Southerners at that period Hved intensely; 
they loved, they suffered, they were part of a romantic 
era, their lives were lives of self-sacrifice and self-control. 
A divorce was a rare thing. Their personal experiences 
and those of their neighbours satisfied their longing for 
romance. And Poe, with the impassioned pen of a 
divine genius to inspire his immortal imagination, came 
upon us too soon. If he had only lived now, we would 
have appreciated and enriched him. I once saw the old 
house in Stoke Newington where he went to school, and 
I have a beautiful portrait of him. Like his "gallant 
knight, " I have often searched long and wearily for the 
" mountains of the Moon. " Do you remember? 
"Oh yes, " said Rosewell, who remembers everything. 

"Gaily bedight, 
A gallant knight, 
In sunshine and in shadow, 
Had journeyed long, 
Singing a song, 
In search of El Dorado. 

"But he grew old — 
This knight so bold — 
And o'er his heart a shadow 
Fell, as he found 
No spot of ground 
That looked like El Dorado. 

" And as his strength 
Failed him at length. 
He met a pilgrim shadow — 
' Shadow,' said he, 
' Where can it be — 
This land of El Dorado? ' 



374 My Beloved South 

" ' Over the mountains 
Of the Moon, 

Down the Valley of the Shadow, 
Ride, boldly ride,' 
The shade replied, 
'If you seek for El Dorado.'" 

I said, "Over my heart truly there 's a shadow. " 

"Then," said Rosewell, "come to Beaver Dam and 
we will try to lift it. " 

"I will come," I said, "in September, when the 
leaves are turned to gold and scarlet." 

"Now," he announced, "we must have some lunch, 
and afterwards we will go and see St. John's Church." 

We lunched at the Westmoreland Club. I ordered 
soft shell crabs, and Rosewell bacon and greens. 

"I suppose," I said, "you do it in honour of that 
delightful story by Bagby in The Old Virginia Gentleman. 
What a fascinating book his sketches have made, and 
so well set forth by the appreciative foreword of Tom 
Page." 

St. John's Church, one of the oldest and most pic- 
turesque in Richmond, has the original pews with the 
high backs lowered. The irregular hinges wrought by 
hand, and the nails on the exterior of the church with 
brass heads half an inch broad, are ruggedly decorative. 
The church was finished in 1741, and later was en- 
larged. It was in this church, at the famous Conven- 
tion of 1775, when war clouds were gathering for the 
Revolution, that Patrick Henry made his great speech 
ending with, " I know not what course others may take, 
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. " 

Not relying on my sieve-like memory, I said to Rose- 
well, "He was the gentleman who made that speech, 
was n't he?" 



A Virginia Gentleman 375 

"He certainly was," said Rosewell, "and George 
Washington, Edmund Pendleton, Thomas Jefferson, 
Richard Henry Lee, known in history as ' Light Horse 
Harry,' and Edward Carrington, fired with patriotic 
enthusiasm, wildly applauded his passionate outburst." 

"Did you," I said, "ever hear of the schoolmaster 
who gave for a subject of composition to his history 
class the name of Patrick Henry? One small boy, 
finishing before the others, handed in this effort: 
* Patrick Henry was tall, with fair hair, blue eyes and 
straight legs, he had a loud voice and got married, then 
he said " Give me liberty or give me death !" ' " 

"I hope," said Rosewell, "the small boy didn't 
grow up to prove his premises. But, sorry as I am, no 
more churches or sight-seeing for me to-day. A tree 
surgeon from the Agricultural Department is waiting 
for me at Beaver Dam. I '11 put you in a car for your 
hotel, and if you stay over to-morrow, let me know." 

On my way to the Jefferson I read the Handbook of 
Virginia, with lovely pictures of country homes, fat 
sheep, and splendid Clydesdale draught horses, with 
great fringed feet, and whiskers on their noses; mounds 
of Albemarle pippins and acres of alfalfa (Captain Jack's 
three-hundred-acre alfalfa field in King George County 
sold for eighteen thousand dollars in 1909). Great 
fields of wide-leafed tobacco, and warehouses filled 
with it. And a farm with acres of ground covered with 
plump, snowy white ducks, from which sixty thousand 
ducks were sold in one year. I turned next to the 
letters, specimens of which I give as they stand. 

The first is from a Scotchman : 

In the short time I have been in Virginia, some of the 
impressions I have formed are of the great number of farms 



^,^6 My Beloved South 

empty. The low prices asked for them (low when com- 
pared to Scotland), the railway facilities for market produce, 
and the good water on almost all the farms I have been on. 
Potatoes, beans, peas, poultry, butter, find ready sale at- 
good prices ; all the crops grown at home can be grown here ; 
Indian corn, tobacco, sweet potatoes, etc., in addition, and 
the residents with good schools and churches are very or- 
derly and law-abiding. 

W. McICiE. 
Box 6, Pern pi in City, Va. 

A second is from a Dane : 

It gives me great pleasure to add my testimonial to the 
excellent climate and almost uniformly productiveness of 
Virginia soil. Being born and raised on a farm in Denmark, 
I determined to locate in America. After going through 
Canada, and many States of the Union, especially the 
Western and North-Western, I at last located in Virginia, 
where I have been domiciled some 38 years, and have, to this 
date, not regretted the choice I made. Too much cannot 
be said of the excellence of its climate, being neither too 
cold nor too warm ; the soil being adaptable to almost any- 
thing that grows. 

Wm. Holsts. 

Richmond, Va. 

A third is appreciative of Virginia: 

Two years ago I came to Virginia for the purpose of 
finding out whether what I read about Virginia was true 
or not, before I moved my family, and I saw and heard 
enough to convince me that it was, so I returned to Canada 
and made a sale and came the year after, and we all liked 
it; the climate is delightful, the season to get one's work 
done is a long one, the land is as good as any I have worked 
or seen in Canada, if properly handled, and I was from the 
best farming and dairying section in Elgin County, Ontario, 



A Virginia Gentleman 2>11 

and was doing well there; but I wanted a home where I 
could live in comfort with a warmer climate and do the 
same as I did in Canada, and I find I can do it here. 

Yours, etc., 

J. E. Martin. 
Ashland, Va. 

A fourth is more than encouraging: 

My farm comprises only twenty-four acres, and from 
this modest area must be excluded eight acres of intractable 
ravine, of which I make a limited use as pasture, my farming 
operations being devoted to the remaining sixteen acres 
which are under cultivation. The use of certain portions 
of this land for a second crop makes the annual ploughing 
area on an average, twenty acres. During the past year 
my book shows the following results: 

300 bushels of Irish potatoes $ 180.00 

50 bushels of sweet potatoes 25.00 

Beans and black peas 25.00 

Early cabbage 75-00 

Garden peas 40.00 

Snap beans 40.00 

Apples 25.00 

Cider vinegar 125.00 

Milk and butter from 4 cows 210.00 

Live animals 62.40 

Slaughtered animals 25.00 

1000 lbs. honey, 15 lbs. wax, from 11 

hives 82.40 

Surplus eggs 7.40 

Surplus asparagus 10.00 

Hay 7240 

Total $1004.60 

These sales were made after full provision for the support 
of three horses, four milch cows, and some smaller stock, 



378 My Beloved South 

including calves, pigs, and chickens. The farm pays full 
tribute to the home table, and only surplus is sold. We 
have the usual garden space which supplies us with a va- 
riety of vegetables and fruits for home use, which are not 
included in the list of money crops. My expenses I com- 
pute at about $250.00 for labour, fertiliser, wheat, bran for 
cows, and for interest on original investment and taxes and 
insurance. 

Farms such as the above can be bought now from $10.00 
to $20.00 per acre in near vicinity to the railroad. 

A thousand pounds of honey — how delicious it 
sounds ! What industrious bees to make it! What 
acres of sweet flowers they must have robbed with all 
their humming industry ! I think, after all, if I were 
choosing for myself, I should like to have a fruit farm; 
the joy would begin with the blossoms and the sun- 
shine and the bees. 

Apples [the Handbook says] may be said to be the prin- 
cipal fruit crop of the State. They arc extensively grown, 
and there is a yearly increasing number of trees planted. 
In one of the Valley counties, a seventeen-year-old orchard 
of 1 1 50 trees produced an apple crop which brought the 
owner $10,000. Another of fifty twenty-year-old trees 
brought $700. Mr. H. E. Vandeman, one of the best 
known horticulturists in the country says there is not in 
all North America a better place to plant orchards than in 
Virginia. "For rich apple soil, good flavour, and keeping 
qualities of the fruit, and nearness to the great markets 
of the East and Europe, your country is wonderfully 
favoured." 

The trees attain a fine size and live to a good old age, 
and produce most abundantly. In Patrick County, 
there is a tree, nine feet five inches in circumference, 



A Virginia Gentleman 379 

which has borne no bushels of apples at a single crop. 
And there are other trees which have borne even more. 
One farmer in Albemarle County has received more than 
$15,000 for a single crop of Albemarle pippins grown 
on twenty acres of land. This pippin is considered the 
most deliciously flavoured apple in the world. Sixty 
years ago, the Hon. Andrew Stevenson of Albemarle, 
when Ambassador from this country to England, pre- 
sented a barrel of Albemarle pippins to Queen Victoria, 
and from that day to this it is said to be the favourite 
apple in the Royal Household, And land in Patrick 
County, where the giant apple tree has produced no 
bushels of apples, is sold from six to eight dollars an 
acre. Air, water, land, corn, fruit, home, contentment, 
all to be had for a song — and yet people are hungry and 
starving in congested cities all over the world. There 
is mismanagement somewhere. I should like to be a 
Commissioner of Immigration, 

The day was not half over when I got back to the 
Jefferson Hotel, so I decided to do a little more sight- 
seeing, and I asked the porter to direct me to the Con- 
federate Museum. He said: "Walk down one block, 
then turn to the right and walk three blocks, turn to the 
left, go straight down Franklin Street, then cross over 
and walk a block and a half, turn to the left, and take 
the car to the museum." And I, with a hole in my 
head for locality ! 

As I stood helplessly and hopelessly on the steps, 
looking vaguely down the street, I noticed a gentleman 
standing in a very leisurely attitude. He had a charm- 
ing, rather delicate face, a composite likeness of John 
Ridgely Carter, that clever diplomat, and Edgar Allan 
Poe. I quickly decided it was the face of a man who 
could unravel a tangled skein, so I said: "I beg your 



380 My Beloved South 

pardon, but the porter here, who I should say would be 
excellent at riddles, has just given me these directions 
for the car which will take me to the Confederate 
Museum. He said: 'Walk down one block, then turn 
to the right and walk three blocks, turn to the left, go 
straight down Franklin Street, then cross over and walk 
a block and a half, and turn to the left.' Can you tell 
me whether, if I don't get lost, I shall eventually find 
that car?" 

He took off his hat, listening with his head uncovered. 
Then he said, smiling: "I am going in that direction 
myself. If you will permit me I will show you the way." 

We both started off, a little shy, although I think my 
grey hair gave him confidence in the situation (I know 
it did me) and I said: "I 'm disappointed that Rosewell 
Page is not with me. He had to go back to the 
country. The Agricultural Department is going to be 
at his place this afternoon, to fill holes in his trees." 

"Oh," said the gentleman, "I know Rosewell Page, 
so I think I may introduce myself to you as Mr. Page's 
friend, James Dunn. We both went to the University 
of Virginia, although my term was later, but still I know 
him, as everybody in Virginia knows everybody else." 

Then I introduced myself as Rosewell Page's other 
friend, and we were quite comfortable and chatty 
together. When the car appeared I asked, "Does the 
car go past the Museum, or do I get out and zigzag 
about until I find it?" 

He said, "There is a comer, so I had better see you 
safely to the entrance. 

When we arrived, I said, "This is not my Museum, 
it is yours. Is it my place to invite you in?" 

And he replied, " If you do, of course I will come in, " 
which he did. 



A Virginia Gentleman 381 

This small Confederate Museum is the most intensely 
human, touching, and appealing reliquary in all the 
world; certainly it is to the people of the South, for 
there hangs in the big case General Lee's shabby grey 
coat, braided in gold, with three stars on the collar. It 
has such a look of friendliness about it, that I wanted 
to put my hand gently on the empty sleeve. Beside it 
hangs the little tin cup he carried with him all through 
the war, which surely gave a draught of comfort to 
more than one wounded and dying soldier. Many 
silver beakers were sent to him from various admirers, 
but in preference to them all, he carried the plain cup of 
the ordinary everyday private. 

I said, " What a truly god-like man he was!" 

"Yes," said Mr. Dunn: 

'"Defeat but made him tower grandly high — 
Sackcloth about him was transformed to gold 

The winds may rage, the frightened clouds be driven, 

Like multitudinous banners, torn and tossed, 

Retreating from some conflict lost. 

But far beyond all shapes and sound of ill 

That star — his soul — is shining calmly still, 

The steadfast splendour in a stormy heaven.' " 

Perhaps, after the relics of General Lee, the most 
romantic object in the Museum is a Florida flag, which 
floated over a regiment through the whole four years of 
that terrible war. It looks as if it might have been 
used by Galahad, or Percivale, or Launcelot. King 
Arthur himself would not have disdained so beautiful 
a banner. It is a very old, heavily embroidered, red 
cr^pe shawl, the red being somehow of the most omin- 
ous hue, as though it had been dyed in blood. The 



382 My Beloved South 

staff of the flag is a long ebony golden-headed cane, 
one of those used in the time of Marie Antoinette, and 
the beaten circles which attach the shawl to it are heavy, 
hand-made gold rings, carved by a local jeweller out of 
melted breast-pins, rings, and bracelets, given by the 
women of the Land of Flowers. Surely there is no flag 
in modern times like this ragged, bullet-pierced, blood- 
stained, embroidered bit of silk. 

Another larger flag with the stars of the Confederacy 
and the broad red-and-white bars had furled itself in 
heavy folds around the staff, and seemed to be the veri- 
table Conquered Banner of Father Ryan : 

Furl that Banner, for 't is weary; 
Round its staff 't is drooping dreary; 
Furl it, fold it, it is best; 
For there 's not a man to wave it, 
And there 's not a sword to save it, 
And there 's not one left to lave it 
In the blood which heroes gave it ; 
And its foes now scorn and brave it; 
Furl it, hide it — let it rest! 

Take that Banner down! 't is tattered; 
Broken is its staff and shattered; 
And the valiant hosts are scattered 
Over whom it floated high. 
Oh ! 't is hard for us to fold it ; 
Hard to think there 's none to hold it; 
Hard that those who once unrolled it 
Now must furl it with a sigh. 

Furl that Banner! Furl it sadly, 
Once ten thousand hailed it gladly, 
And ten thousand wildly, madly, 
Swore it should for ever wave; 



A Virginia Gentleman 383 

Swore that foeman's sword should never 
Hearts Hke theirs entwined dissever 
Till that flag should float for ever 
O'er their freedom or their grave! 

Furl it ! For the hands that grasped it, 
And the hearts that fondly clasped it, 
Cold and dead are lying low; 
And that banner — it is trailing! 
While around it sounds the wailing 
Of its people in their woe. 
For, though conquered, they adore it! 
Love the cold dead hands that bore it! 
Weep for those who fell before it ! 
Pardon those who trailed and tore it! 
But, oh! wildly they deplore it, 
Now who furl and fold it so. 

Furl that Banner! True, 't is gory. 
Yet 't is wreathed around with glory. 
And 't will live in song and story 
Though its folds arc in the dust; 
For its fame on brightest pages 
Penned by poets and by sages 
Shall go sounding down the ages — 
Furl its folds, though now we must. 

Furl that Banner, softly, slowly! 
Treat it gently — it is holy — 
For it droops above the dead. 
Touch it not — unfold it never — 
Let it droop there, furled for ever. 
For its people's hopes are dead! 

Now a younger generation have grown up, hopeful, 
prosperous, and forgiving, and the " Conquered Banner " 
is but to them a cherished poem. 



384 My Beloved South 

In another case there was a big wax doll, with china 
blue eyes, which originally must have been a beauty, 
but her hair is very thin now and all the paint on her 
face has been kissed away by appreciative adorers. A 
little tag pinned on her stiffly starched calico sleeve 
states that she was sent from Leamington, England, to 
a Virginia child in 1863 and that many children at this 
time had never seen a doll and they were brought miles 
to gaze longingly upon this celebrated English beauty. 

When we left the Museum Mr. Dunn proposed that 
we should take tea with his sister-in-law, the wife of 
Dr. Dunn, and at the same time I could see West's 
pictures of Shelley. Mrs. Dunn, a very charming 
woman, was luckily at home, and received me most 
kindly, and her brother-in-law, the Virginia gentleman 
— and a true gentleman can always rely upon his judg- 
ment and instinct — was quite equal to the occasion. 
With authority he presented me as "My friend, Mrs. 
O'Connor, " and though I wanted to laugh at his daring, 
from that moment we were friends. 

A link between the old world and the new is an au- 
thentic portrait of Shelley which hangs on the drawing- 
room wall of a house in Richmond, together with the 
sketch from life which in the first place inspired the por- 
trait. The canvas used is only eight by nine inches in 
size. The portrait was painted by Edward West, at 
that time a young, handsome artist himself, and was 
evidently executed in spontaneous admiration . The full , 
soft, brown hair is pushed back from a high, intellectual 
forehead, the eyebrows are well marked, and the bril- 
liant blue eyes, expressive of youthful hope and an 
ardent temperament, are beautifully set in the head. 
The face, a pure, long oval, with a delicate nose, tenderly 
moulded mouth, and strong chin, is that of a man in the 



A Virginia Gentleman 385 

very heyday of his youth — happy and probably full of 
enjoyment of his new, but ill-fated sailing boat, that 
"perfect plaything for the summer," which, like many 
perfect playthings, produced a sad tragedy. 

The Shelleys and their friends the Williams were 
living at Lerice, while Byron was at Montenero, where 
West was painting his portrait. Shelley, who probably 
sailed over from Lerice, appeared one afternoon, and 
Byron, all cordiality, seated him facing West's easel, and 
the three remained in interesting conversation for more 
than an hour. During a momentary rest from Byron's 
picture, West was so impressed by Shelley's radiant 
personality that he slyly made an accurate sketch of 
him. When Byron saw it, he thought it an excellent 
likeness, and West then and there determined to use the 
sketch for a portrait, which he subsequently did. The 
artist said: "Never have I seen a face so expressive of 
ineffable goodness; its benignity and intelligence were 
only shadowed by a certain sadness as one upon whom 
life pressed keenly, at touching variance with the youth 
indicated by his contour and movements." 

Subsequently, on the first of July, Leigh Hunt, 
Byron, Shelley, and West spent some days together at 
Pisa. Here it is most probable that the artist began 
the portrait. The original pencil sketch is made on a 
fine quality of drawing-paper seven inches by eight, and 
this is the inscription: "Sketch of Percy B. Shelley by 
William West, taken at Villa Rossa, near Leghorn, in 
1822, and thought by Byron to be a good likeness. " 

West was a quiet, modest man, a lover of poetry and 
a true artist. Shelley's joyous youth and wonderful 
personality had made an indelible impression upon him. 
He never tried to dispose of the portrait, and at his 
death it was left to a member of his family, and is 

25 



386 My Beloved South 

now, with his fine picture of Judith, owned by Dr. 
Dunn. 

When we left the house and resumed our pleasant 
walk, my new friend said to me : 

" Of course it was n't only to show you West's picture 
that I carried you off to my brother's house. I wanted 
you to see the sponsors for my respectability. " 

"And what, " I said, " of my sponsors? They are all 
faraway." 

He replied gallantly, "You are a lady. You need 
none. " 

Could Lord Chesterfield have done better than this 
modern young Virginia gentleman? 

It is strange how such a thing happened to me, being 
generally impervious to chills, but I developed a severe 
cold in Richmond, which cut short my visit and sent 
me to Washington to Bee. In the midst of my eloquent 
description of Mr. Dunn she asked, "You did n't just 
speak to him on the hotel steps? " 

"Yes," I said, "I did. You see, if you are a 
grandmother, and the man 's a gentleman, it 's perfectly 
permissible. No woman knows true joy and independ- 
ence until she 's a grandmother! I wish I had been 
the mother of many children and grandchildren. But, 
after all, adopted daughters are quite satisfactory. I 
have hurried from Richmond just to have you take 
care of me." 

Bee, with the beautiful look in her eyes, said, "You 
know I '11 do that, Swizzlegigs. " 



CHAPTER XXV 

A BRAVE LADY 

"She is dead, you say, master?" 
"Yes." 

"And did you know her?" 

"I knew her well. She had the face of a primrose, the heart of a 
child, the love of a woman, and the loyalty of a man. " 

ALTHOUGH Becky Sharp plays her part so en- 
trancingly in Vanity Fair that she overshadows 
every other character in the book, except, perhaps, poor 
Rawdon Crawley, the scene between Mrs. O'Dowd and 
the Major the night before the battle of Waterloo is not 
easily forgotten. 

" I 'd like ye to wake me about half-an-hour before the 
assembly beats," the major said to his lady. "Call me at 
half-past one, Peggy dear, and see me things is ready. 
Maybe I '11 not come back to breakfast, Mrs. 0*D." With 
which words, which signified his opinion that the regiment 
would march the next morning, the Major ceased talking 
and fell asleep. 

Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl 
papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act and 
not to sleep at this junctiire. "Time enough for that," 
she said, "when Mick's gone." And so she packed his 
travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, 
his hat, and other warlike habiliments, set them out in 
order for him, and stowed away in the coat pockets a light 

387 



388 My Beloved South 

package of portable refreshments, and a wicker covered 
flask or pocket pistol, containing near a pint of a remark- 
ably sound Cognac brandy of which she and the Major 
approved very much; and as soon as the hands of "the 
repayther " pointed to half-past one, and its interior ar- 
rangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its 
fair owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs. 
O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable a cup 
of coffee prepared for him as any maid that morning in 
Brussels. . . . The consequence was, that the Major 
appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well- 
shaved rosy countenance, as he sat on horseback, giving 
cheerfulness and confidence to the whole corps. All the 
officers saluted her when the regiment marched by the 
balcony on which this brave woman stood and waved 
them a cheer as they passed ; and I daresay it was not 
from want of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy 
and propriety, that she refrained from leading the gallant 
— th personally into action, 

History repeats itself. The mould is altered but 
never broken. Mrs. Crook, like Mrs. O'Dowd, was a 
brave soldier, and she, too, could have led the — th into 
action. To the bravery and powers of endurance of a 
man, she united the generosity, the quick tenderness, 
and the self-abnegating love of the woman. She 
married General Crook at seventeen. After an ideal 
honeymoon, he was sent to San Francisco and was 
stationed in California in the Indian country, where it 
was quite impossible for his young wife to accompany 
him. But for these six months of enforced separation, 
Mrs. Crook spent her whole life in the army at her 
husband's side. She literally buckled on his sword 
every morning and unbuckled it every night. If they 
were stationed in the barren plains of Arizona or New 



A Brave Lady 389 

Mexico, with only canned food to eat for the entire 
summer and boiled water to drink, Mrs. Crook never 
thought of going East. What General Crook could 
endure she endured cheerfully, uncomplainingly, and 
bravely until death parted them. And next to her 
husband she loved the army, having the good name, 
the courage, and the honour of the regiment quite as 
much, if not more, at heart than he had. There was 
no pretty, flighty, or imprudent young woman who ever 
went to Mrs. Crook for protection or help without 
getting it, and it was given with a generosity that even 
few men possess. She kept husbands and wives 
together by her devoted example in never leaving her 
own husband, and the camp, wherever it might be, 
was her home, the regiment her child. 

When they were stationed in Chicago an order came 
from the War Department ordering General Crook to 
transfer all the Indians from the reservations in Illinois 
to the Indian territory, now the State of Oklahoma. 
The order was unnecessary, for they were industrious, 
prosperous, inoffensive, law-abiding, quiet citizens. 
Notwithstanding the fact that he was a celebrated 
Indian fighter. General Crook, curiously enough, liked 
the Indian, understood him, and was, above all, just 
to him. He said to Mrs. Crook: "Mary, the latest 
order from the War Department is going to take me out 
of the army. " 

Her heart stood still with fear, but she said, "Why, 
George, you can't leave the army, you don't know 
anything else. You are a good soldier, but you could n't 
make a dollar a day at any other profession to save your 
life." 

General Crook said: "Nevertheless I am going to 
resign. I can fight the Indian, but I can't take ad- 



390 My Beloved South 

vantage of him. I have never done a cowardly thing 
that I can remember, or one directly against my con- 
science. If I do this, I should be lowered in my own 
estimation, so I am going to send in my resignation. " 

She said: "Why can't you write to the War Depart- 
ment and protest? " 

"No," he said, "I can't do that. I am a soldier 
and the War Department issues orders for its soldiers to 
obey. That is the first thing in a soldier's code — obedi- 
ence. I could n't possibly write to the War Depart- 
ment. The only manly thing for me to do is to resign. " 

She rejoined, "The only mad thing for you to do is 
to resign. George, think of our leaving the regiment! 
It is not to be contemplated for a moment." 

"That is just what is going to happen," he said. 

" Can't anything be done? " she asked. 

"Well, " he said, " what about that God of yours that 
you are always telling me is so just and merciful? 
Where are your prayers? " 

Mrs. Crook looked at him for a moment and said," Do 
you realise, my dear, that you have been my god for 
so many years that I don't know whether I have a right 
to pray to the other one whom I loved and trusted as a 
child? And, now, you are going to do something to 
break my heart." 

He said, "You should be more familiar with your 
Bible. Don't you know it says, ' Put not your faith in 
Princes,' and adds — to cover the whole ground — 'nor 
in any man'?" 

She said, "I have always remembered about the 
Princes." 

"Well," said General Crook, "I am the other fellow, 
and I am going to resign. " 

"No," she said, "I will make one last effort. Have 



A Brave Lady 391 

the carriage ready, and I will go to every clergyman in 
Chicago and beg of him to preach a sermon on the 
injustice of the Indians being removed to the Indian 
territory," 

The next day was Sunday, and Mrs. Crook, with her 
eloquence, her great heart, and her emotional appeal, 
had so wrought upon the feelings of the clergy that they 
thundered forth from the pulpit heartfelt condemna- 
tions against the contemplated injustice of the govern- 
ment. The order from the War Department was 
rescinded and Mrs. Crook saved a gallant soldier to the 
army. 

She had the misfortune to outlive her husband, and 
her widowhood was one of the saddest things on earth. 
If she could have remained Colonel of the regiment it 
would not have been so empty, but to be bereft of 
George and the regiment too, that was indeed supreme 
loneliness. She wandered about America, and even 
got as far as Europe, trying to forget, but only learned 
to endure. 

One afternoon IVIrs. Labouchere was giving a party at 
Old Palace Yard. There was a distinguished concert 
first, with Patti as a "bright particular star," and 
afterwards strawberries and cream. It was early in 
June, before the London frocks had time to lose their 
pristine freshness. Everybody looked their best, and 
it was a very gay and charming scene. Mrs. Harter 
particularly attracted Mrs. Crook. Her hair, exquis- 
itely dressed, was surmounted by a tricome hat with a 
bunch of white feathers; she wore a thin, gauzy gown 
bespangled with soft pink roses, a pink sash, and 
beautiful old ornaments of pearls and diamonds. She 
was a charming figure as she stood there, neat, trim, 
dainty, fashionable, and complete. 



392 My Beloved South 

When we got out into the street and walked slowly 
up to St. James's Park and sat down on a bench, Mrs. 
Crook gave a long sigh and said, "Oh, Betty, I am 
longing ' for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound 
of a voice that is still.' To-day I do so badly want to 
see my dear old George. You know, all this civilisation 
is extremely interesting and artificially charming, but 
it is only the slight veneer of reality. What do these 
women, with their silver tissues, flower-wreathed hats, 
wrinkled gloves, high-heeled shoes, and pretty little 
artificial manners, know of the big things of life or of 
the heart? They have had nothing to waken it, and the 
years have gone so smoothly with them that not a line 
has been written upon their faces. I don't know why 
in that white and rose drawing-room among those gaily 
dressed people, memory should have taken me back 
more than thirty years to a tragic experience. Perhaps 
it was the law of contrast." 

"Tell me, dear Mrs. Crook," I said, "what hap- 
pened?" 

"When George and I were married," she said, "it 
was with the understanding that I should stay in Balti- 
more with my family until he could send for me, that is, 
until he was stationed at a post where a woman could 
live in safety. I don't say comfortably, because in 
those days there was precious little comfort in the 
army. Well, I waited for six months, and there was no 
prospect of such a post, so, without letting him know 
I travelled to San Francisco alone, and wrote to him to 
say I was there and ready to join the army. Of course, 
a girl of eighteen could not be left in that gay city by 
herself, and he really did not want to send me home 
again, so there was nothing to be done but come for me. 
He asked for an escort, and they gave him a very small 



A Brave Lady 393 

one, and we had to travel right through the heart of the 
Indian country to get to the post. The old sergeant 
took stock of me and said, ' Mrs. Crook, you look as if 
you were going to be a permanent recruit, now if you 
want to be real comfortable you had better put on a 
blue flannel shirt, boy's trousers, a soft hat, and ride 
astraddle.' So I did, and George thought I was the 
sweetest boy on earth. The third day out, I think it 
was, a terrible look came over the face of the sergeant. 
We were just behind a grove of scrub oaks, for we tried 
to get out of the danger of the open whenever we could. 
By peering through the foliage, away to the left, we 
saw about two hundred Indians, and from the dim out- 
line of the upstanding feathers on the heads of the 
braves, evidently they were on the war-path. My 
husband called a sudden halt, and quickly pulled my 
horse close against his, with a face like the face of the 
dead. He put his arm round me, opened the collar of 
my flannel shirt, placed the muzzle of his pistol against 
my heart, and said, ' If we are discovered, dear, it must 
be. Better this than an Indian !' We stood so for ten 
mortal minutes, with the cold steel chilling my warm 
flesh. Once, when an Indian chief lifted his head, 
sniffed the air, and looked round, it seemed as if even 
the horses understood and became as rigid as stone. 
With the disappearance of the last Indian, my husband 
dropped in a dead faint. The sergeant was just in time 
to catch his pistol. When George came round and 
opened his eyes, he said, ' My God, I am ten years older, 
Mary !' These are the moments, Betty, that weld a man 
and a woman together and give them one soul. Half of 
me is dead. Tell me how to make the other half live 
until I find George. " And, strong and well and vigorous 
as she was, it was not long before their meeting came. 



394 My Beloved South 

Buffalo Bill had his show in London that spring. He 
had been a scout for General Crook, and he wanted to 
do honour to his wife, so he placed a box at her disposal 
and gave a large luncheon to a party of army people and 
other distinguished men and women then in town. Mrs. 
Crook asked me to sit in her box, and we found it 
draped with the American flag, and bunches of roses, 
tied with the national colours, were waiting for us. 
Colonel Cody had asked us particularly to be in time 
for the entrance of the procession. We did n't know 
that an unexpected honour had been prepared for Mrs. 
Crook. The colour-bearer and the company of Ameri- 
can soldiers, the Indians following behind, the cowboys, 
and all the rest of the procession, galloped straight up 
to the box and made the military salute to the distin- 
guished lady sitting within it. 

Mrs. Crook divined what was going to happen, and 
seized my hand, saying, "Oh, Betty, a reminder of the 
past! God bless the army!" 

I added, "And our flag!" 

"Your flag and my flag, and how it flies to-day 
In your land and my land, and half a world away, 
Rose-red and blood-red, its stripes for ever gleam, 
Snow-white and soul-white, the good forefathers' dream, 
Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars that shine aright. 
The gloried guidon of the day and refuge through the 
night." 

I wonder if there is anything in all the world that 
stirs the blood so much as the sight of Old Glory in 
another land. It is not seen as often as it should be, 
for we no longer send down ships to the sea, and I have 
often felt lonely in a foreign port for the sight of that 
banner spangled with stars. 



A Brave Lady 395 

Mrs. Crook said, as Colonel Cody rode out, " Look 
at Bill. Isn't he a gallant figure? I never see him 
without remembering that furious, single hand-to-hand 
duel of his in the Black Hills country after Custer's 
tragic battle, which did not leave one man alive. When 
Colonel Merritt marched against eight hundred Sioux 
Buffalo Bill and a number of picked men were sent in 
advance on scout service. They met two couriers 
hotly pursued by Indians, and in protecting them a 
fight began, in the midst of it the Indians suddenly fell 
back in serried ranks, while a great chief wearing a war 
crown of black and white feathers, his face painted in a 
hideous mask of black and scarlet, hate and vengeance 
flashing from his eyes, rode forward, crying hoarsely to 
Buffalo Bill, ' Death to you, Pa-has-ka, or death to me!' 
And the armies waited, while at a distance of fifty yards 
those two brave men fought. The Indian's horse fell 
wounded. At the same moment Buffalo Bill's mare 
stumbled and threw him, but in a second they were 
both on their feet and, at a distance of twenty yards, 
fired again. Bill's hat tilted to one side — a bullet had 
gone through it; but the Indian fell forward, shot 
through the heart. The duel over. Colonel Merritt 
ordered the army to charge. Bill, with the Indian's 
top-knot held aloft, rode ahead, his eyes blazing with 
victory, shouting 'The first scalp for Custer!'" 

I said, " He ought to make that a feature of the show." 

At the luncheon I asked Mrs. Crook what had become 

of M of the — ^th Cavalry. She said, "He 's all 

right. He was your first suitor, was n't he?" 

"Yes," I replied, "the very first, and I have never 
forgotten him." 

She said, "You might have done worse than marry 
M He 's a good fellow, although once he would 



396 My Beloved South 

have got into a lot of trouble if it had n't been for 
me. 

"How was that?" I asked. 

"Well," she said, "a pretty, flirty, foolish, harmless, 
reckless young married woman was seen, or was said 
to have been seen, coming out of his quarters. (He is a 
bachelor yet, by the way.) I saw that we were going 
to have a big army scandal, with two officers fighting 
a duel and a woman's reputation ruined, and I just 
could n't have it, so at any cost I had to prove an alibi 
for this indiscreet young woman." 

"Did you do it?" I asked. 

Mrs. Crook's eyes twinkled. "Of course I did," she 
said. "By the strangest good-luck the lady was in my 
quarters, and I could answer for her. Naturally, the 
word of the wife of the Colonel of the regiment had to 
be accepted." 

I said, "If you said she was with you she was." 

"Well," said Mrs. Crook, "if she wasn't she ought 
to have been." 

I held up my glass. "Mrs. Crook, I have always 
said you were a soldier, an officer, and a gentleman." 

Buffalo Bill stood up. "Ladies and gentlemen," 
he said, "that is a good toast. I ask you to drink to 
Mrs. Crook, a gallant soldier, an officer, a gentleman, 
and a true and loyal woman!'' 

And we drank that toast, wishing there were more of 
her generous kind in the world. 

Mrs. Crook continued, "I said to General Crook, 
' George, I suppose you know I 've been obliged to tell 
a very white lie. What would you have done? ' He said, 
'I don't know; I never told a lie in my life.' I said, 
'You never told a lie in your life?' He said, 'No, I 
don't remember ever to have told a lie. Sometimes I 



A Brave Lady 397 

have remained silent, sometimes I have evaded a 
question, but I don't remember ever to have directly 
lied.' Then I said to him, 'George Crook, wouldn't 
you lie for a woman?' He said, 'I don't know, I have 
never had to do it.' Still I persevered, 'Would n't you 
if you had to?' He said, 'Mary, I would n't like to do 
it.' 'Then,' I said, 'if you are not prepared to lie, 
don't ever fall in love with any woman but me.' And 
he never did." 

I think in all her life Mrs. Crook never had but one 
rival, a little baby cousin of mine. While they were 
stationed in Arizona and the weather was at its very 
worst. Colonel Cyrus Roberts's wife became the mother 
of twin girls. One of them died, and the other who 
lived was an extremely delicate little child. When she 
was a woman of three she developed a wild adoration of 
General Crook. If Mrs. Crook patted him on the 
shoulder or smoothed his hair, she would fly at her like 
a jealous fairy virago, and her devotion to him never 
ceased until they left the post. 

Her elder brother, Charlie Roberts, a boy of five, had 
seen the nurse coming to the house the day the babies 
were born with a large basket, and he dated their 
arrival from that basket. The poor little things were so 
cross, cried so continually, and required so much 
attention, that his poor little nose was completely out 
of joint. One day when the remaining baby was about 
four months old, the nurse appeared carrying the same 
basket. Charlie, without a word, rushed over to Mrs. 
Crook's quarters, saying, "I'm going to live here. 
I 'm never going back any more to my mother and 
father, 'cause we 've got twins again. The nurse 
brought 'em in her basket. I did n't see 'em, but I 
know they 're there, and I won't live in a house with any 



398 My Beloved South 

more twins. " And it was only when he was assured of 
the emptiness of the basket that he could be prevailed 
upon to go home. 

After Mrs. Crook returned to America she wrote to 
me from time to time, long, affectionate letters, and 
sent me several cookery books, for she was an excellent 
housekeeper, could make a tasty dish out of nothing, 
and was anxious for me to follow in her footsteps, 
believing, as they say in England, that you should 
"feed the brute, " and do it artfully and well. 

But in spite of her seemingly practical interest in the 
world, her heart was broken, and without any particular 
illness she died. It was a very poignant regret to me 
that she could not witness her own funeral, for she had a 
love of pomp and circumstance and a very keen sense 
of gratitude for manifest affection. The day she was 
buried was golden with sunshine, a large gathering of 
people followed the brave soldier to her last rest, and 
there was an opulent luxuriance of flowers which would 
have gladdened her appreciative spirit. Her coffin was 
hidden in them, and carriage after carriage followed the 
hearse heaped with wreaths and crosses and hearts and 
pillows, and then quite small bunches of flowers from 
humbler friends, who had loved her and had received 
her sympathy and optimistic help. When the coffin was 
lowered into the grave, it rested on the hearts of 
thousands of beautiful roses, and each flower contained 
love and regret for one who had given so much love and 
loyalty to the world. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

MY HEALING SOUTH 

So let the way wind up the hill or down, 
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy: 
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy, 
New friendships, high adventures and a crown. 
My heart will keep the courage of the quest 
And hope the road's last turn will be the best. 

Henry Van Dyke. 

MY Utopian idea was to spend the summer in Wash- 
ington, and yet I had a warning of what the 
weather was to be when the Thomas Nelson Pages 
gave a dinner to Chief Justice and Mrs. Lamar. The 
thermometer stood at, — well anything. The asphalt 
streets, having absorbed the heat, gave it out in large 
purgatorial waves, but with the windows all open, the 
dinner- table a long bed of cool, white and pink sweet- 
peas, a few blocks of ice and electric fans, to forget the 
weather was within the range of possibility. But we 
— the Pages, that boyish, popular woman, Belle Hag- 
ner, Rosewell, and I — wondered how, if the heat 
continued, we would survive Alfred Thom's party 
arranged to start the next evening for Gettysburg. 

The sun next morning rose like a brazen copper shield. 
The heat never abated during the day, but neither did 
our courage. Mrs. Page provided us with a dozen 
palm-leaf fans, guidebooks, and literatiire appropriate 

399 



400 My Beloved South 

to the occasion, and after dinner we drove to the sta- 
tion and entered a special car for Baltimore. 

I had never been in one before and found it surpris- 
ingly comfortable. There were real bedrooms, with 
brass beds and proper furniture; a long observation 
room furnished in green, with luxurious chairs; and a 
fine dining-room with a kitchen adjoining, where a 
negro chef prepared frequent and tempting meals. Al- 
fred Thorn is a Virginian, a successful and brilliant 
lawyer, and the sort of man socially whom his hostess 
places at a dinner party next the woman she wants to 
be happy. We had not long finished dining, but like 
the little boy who when asked if he was hungry replied, 
"No, but, thank God, I'm greedy," we did justice 
to the supper of planked shad, soft-shell crabs, hot rolls, 
salad, and coffee which was served about nine o'clock. 

I, like the streets of Washington, was so thoroughly 
baked that when we got out of the car at Baltimore 
there seemed no abatement in the temperature to me. 
But Florence Page has quick susceptibilities. She 
sniffed the air with her little nose, and said, "A change 
in the weather; it 's cooler." And so it proved to be. 
The next morning was sunless, the sky a pearl grey, 
and the day an ideal one for our expedition. Charles 
Scribner and David Peyton had joined us at Baltimore, 
and a quick run brought us to Gettysburg, a pretty 
little clean village, which has its memories of the war. 
But we were too impatient to tarry there. A large 
char-a-banc, with a couple of strong horses, conveyed 
us to the great battle-field, and we got out at any point 
which specially interested us. 

Tom Page, with field-glasses, was keenly observant. 
The battle-field contained vital interest to him, as he 
was at the moment finishing his Hf e of General Lee. The 



My Healing South 401 

guide had a stentorian voice, a steady flow of words, 
and such a rhythmical way of speaking that, al- 
though discoursing of battle and sudden death, he had 
rather a stultifying effect. I, at least, only heard 
from time to time the beginning or the end of lengthy 
descriptions. 

He said : "The men who fought on the field of Gettys- 
burg were among the bravest that ever faced the 
cannon's mouth. Not even Napoleon's Old Guard 
was more courageous than Longstreet's column as they 
marched across the fatal field to be shot and mangled 
by the murderous fire of the Union batteries. And Lee's 
men stood as firmly on the crest of Cemetery Ridge, as 
Wellington's battalions at the battle of Waterloo. Fifty 
years have passed since the Sixteenth Battle of the 
world was fought, but the daring deeds and desperate 
courage of the brave soldiers who lost and won that 
mighty contest will go sounding down through all the 
ages. In the spring of 1863, General Lee, emboldened 
by his many successes, determined to move his army 
into the North. The capital of Pennsylvania, used 
for organising and equipping troops, was the first ob- 
jective point, Washington, the capital of the nation, 
was the second. And Gettysburg was felt to be the 
decisive battle of the war, for across the sea foreign 
powers waited to aid the South if they saw success 
ahead of her," (Success can always get help, failure 
never, no matter how righteous the cause.) 

"Freedom and Independence were visible to the 
eyes of the Confederate soldiers, when those inspiring 
words were blotted out by rivers of blood. Lee moved 
the main part of his army to Gettysburg by the Cum- 
berland Valley — " the guide droned on. And then my 

imagination took flight and a battle appeared before 
26 



402 My Beloved South 

me full of action and horror. I seemed to hear General 
Howard issuing an order to Colonel Biddle. 
"Extend the line to the south!" 
"Keep the enemy from flanking on the left!" 
The Colonel gallops on his beautiful sorrel, well in 
front of his guns, his aide keeping close to his side. A 
shell whistles between them and swerves to the left. 
God ! how steadily a headless man can ride ! The aide 
drops from his mare, she gives a whinnying scream, 
staggers, and falls. A second shell has ploughed its 
way deep into her side. The Colonel scarcely pauses 
in his gallop, but hoarsely calls to his men: 
" Move forward ! — For — ward ! ' ' 
"Guns to the front! Guns to the front!" 
Look, the peak of his cap hangs down, his face is 
blue and bruised. He has been struck — no, it is only 
powder, from an empty shell. 
" Battery gallop!" he orders. 

The Federal troops behind him are being mowed 
down like corn ; sharpshooters are in their rear ; the 
Bucktail brigade, Biddle remembers, is new, and this 
is work for the soldier of experience. Eight guns are 
now galloping over the rough ground. A slow, vicious, 
chilling hiss, and a big shell flies along, explodes not a 
foot away from his horse, a piece of iron darts up in 
the air in front of him; his eyelashes are singed, he 
rides now in a cap without a visor. A long grey line 
to the left pours a steady, murderous fire. His men 
are confused; they are being killed, not singly, but in 
sixes and tens, making little mounds of piteous, bleed- 
ing humanity. 

" Fire ! Fire ! " The guns roar, but when the smoke 
clears away only one gunner is left. A broad sheet of 
red flame comes unceasingly from the line of grey. 



My Healing South 403 

" God in Heaven ! Is it all artillery ? " 

Colonel Roy Stone shouts above the wild conflicting 
roar: 

" Charge Bucktails ! " 

And the Bucktails charge after their Colonel, stand 
the fire, and are mowed down, leaving big gaps, made 
by Pegram's batteries. Smoke, shot, shells, wounded 
and dying are clogging the way, but on they go with a 
rush, Roy Stone always ahead, his loud voice cheering 
and encouraging : 

"Bravo Bucktails!" 

Suddenly he gives a long, dull, smothered scream; 
his teeth clench tightly together. Blood gushes like a 
fountain from his limp body, and from a great hole in 
the shoulder of his wounded horse, dyeing the grass a 
vivid scarlet. He will lead the diminishing number of 
Bucktails no more. 

Brave Wister takes his place, shouting hoarsely : 

" Don't lose courage, boys! On to the cannon, cap- 
ture the cannon!" 

His next order no one can hear, for Hell has set up 
her orchestra of horrid sounds to madden men and 
turn them into bloodthirsty tigers. They are getting 
closer to the enemy, the long grey line, and losing, los- 
ing every minute. Wister looks to the right and yells : 

" Hold your ground ! For God's sake, no surrender ! " 

The wavering line of blue steadies ; the heaving guns 
are drawn forward, crunching over bodies still warm, 
and fire — fire — until smoke comes forth from without 
as well as within the cannon, 

" The sponge ! The sponge ! " 

The gunner uses it, drops it, and fires with blistered 
hands. Men are running now everywhere. The heat 
of the day, the constant firing, the hot earth ploughed 



404 My Beloved South 

up by shells, makes them pant like dogs. They move 
brokenly backwards and forwards. 

Colonel Wister, his cap gone, his hair stiffened by 
powder, his eyes blazing, opens his mouth to shout an 
order. God in Heaven ! He has no tongue to give it 
with. A bullet has cut through his mouth like a sabre 
and ploughed its way down his throat. He is stifled 
with blood and falls heavily across his horse, which a 
moment later crashes down with its front legs broken 
and bleeding The men falter, wheel, and turn. At 
last the order has been given, " Fall back! Fall back!" 

But one man, a colour sergeant, young, passionate, 
defiant, stands as if turned to stone, while the battal- 
ions double-quick by him. He is left alone, holding 
high the flag with one hand, the other clenched towards 
the enemy; but he falls quickly, shot through the 
heart, with his face buried in the stars, and his life 
blood turning the white stripes to crimson. 

Colonel Fremantle, a British officer on the staff of 
Lee, said, " My God, what a pity to kill such a brave 
Yankee!" 

Then I found myself looking over a green field more 
than a mile long, with nothing, not even a tree, to break 
the fire that mowed down Pickett's division. Yet Fate 
had one moment of mercy on that day, as, on his black 
war horse, a shining mark for bullets, followed by the 
men who, imbued with his iron nerve, marched to cer- 
tain death. General Pickett, through all that murderous 
battle, was spared. 

But, gallant soldier as he was — and George Pickett 
is one of my heroes, — I like best to remember him on 
the day when he first met his beautiful wife. 

"Almost from babyhood," she says, "I knew and 



My Healing South 405 

loved him, and from the first time I ever spoke to him 
until the end, I always called him, ' Soldier, — my soldier.' 
I was a wee bit of a girl at that first meeting. I had 
been visiting my grandmother, when whooping-cough 
broke out in the neighbourhood, and she took me off to 
Old Point Comfort to visit her friend, Mrs. Boykin, the 
sister of John Y. Mason. I could dance and sing and 
play games, and was made much of by the other 
children and their parents there, till I suddenly de- 
veloped the cough. Then, I was shunned and 
isolated. 

" I could not understand the change. I would press 
my face against the ball-room window-panes, and watch 
them merry-making inside, until my little heart would 
almost break. One morning, while playing alone on 
the beach, I saw an officer lying on the sand under an 
umbrella, reading. I had noticed him several times, 
always apart from the others. I could imagine but one 
reason for his desolation, and in pity for him and desire 
to comfort him, I crept under his umbrella to ask if he, 
too, had whooping-cough. He smiled, and answered, 
' No.* But as I still persisted, he drew me to him, telling 
me that he had lost his wife and little girl and was very 
lonely. I asked their names. They had both been 
called Sally. 

" 'You can call me Sally,* I suggested, 'I '11 be your 
wife and little girl.* 

"'That's a promise,* he replied, 'you shall be 
named Sally and shall be my wife.' 

"My soldier took a little ring from his watch-guard 
and put it on my finger and gave me a tiny heart-shape 
locket with 'Sally' engraved on one side, and I crept 
from under the umbrella pledged to Lieutenant George 
E. Pickett of the United States Army for life and death. 



4o6 My Beloved South 

He claimed my promise later, and I still hold most 
sacred the Httle locket and the ring." 

The guide's dull monotone reached my ears : " Pick- 
ett's brave Virginians emerged from the wood with 
their guns to the right shoulder shift, marching shoulder 
to shoulder, not a man out of step but as steadily as 
though on dress parade. When they were half-way 
across the field, all the guns drawn up along the Union 
lines concentrated their fire on the unwavering grey 
column, mowing great gaps in their ranks. But on 
they came, keeping steady step, time after time closing 
up the gaps, not firing a shot, but unflinchingly press- 
ing on and on across the field of death, with undaunted 
faces turned towards that rain of shot and shell, as if 
they had been facing a summer shower. . . . 

" General Armistead had reached the stone wall. He 
replied to Gushing by saying to his men, 'Boys, give 
them cold steel!' With his cap on the point of his 
sword, he leaped the stone wall, followed by hundreds 
of his men, and had reached thirty odd paces within 
the Union lines when he fell wounded, near the body 
of Gushing. Then came the hand-to-hand conflict 
which had lasted only a few minutes when they were 
obliged to throw down their arms and surrender. 
Pickett's division had been almost annihilated. Those 
who fought along the stone wall at the Bloody Angle 
surviving to-day can testify that they could walk from 
the stone wall to beyond the Emmettsburg Road, a 
great distance, over the dead bodies of Pickett's men." 

They made the noblest carpet of grey and red that 
Fate ever laid upon this green earth. In a little village 
between the Emmettsburg Road and beyond the stone 
wall, over six hundred of Pickett's men were afterwards 
buried, and out of the fifteen field officers of his division. 



My Healing South 407 

only a single one escaped unhurt. Pickett's men did 
all that mortal men could do; they could do no more. 
And oh, the pity of it all! The heart-break of it all! 
Men who saw it say, "I never saw, and I never expect to 
see, so superhumanly grand a sight as Pickett's fearless 
men when they crossed the field of death." 

How I ached as we drove back to our car ! My heart, 
my head, my very soul ached with the memories of that 
great and terrible battle. I stayed by Rose well Page, 
who is that rare combination, a witty man and a Chris- 
tian gentleman (for piety is too often serious; I once 
saw an advertisement in an English paper — "Wanted, 
a lady companion, a Christian; cheerful if possible"), 
and I begged him to give me comfort, for I do not believe 
in war and am enrolled among that honoured body who 
fight for the universal peace of the world. 

In spite of the overpowering heat I remained in 
Washington until the i8th of July, a regretable stay 
when my time might have been spent at the Warm 
Springs, where the atmosphere of the old romantic 
South — of my long vanished childhood — still lingers. 
Invalids came as early as 1800 to the Warm Springs, 
and it is quite possible that even Queen Elizabeth may 
have heard of their existence, for all these healing 
waters in Virginia were known and used by the Indians 
before America was discovered. 

As early as 18 14 there was evidently a sort of Inn 
and general Exchange. The old account books of that 
date are filled with well-known English and Scotch 
names — Cameron, McClintock, Campbell, McGuffin, 
Page, Byrd, Wallace, Berkley, Sitlington, Hamilton, 
Warwick, and Brockenbrough. 

The accounts of William Hunter Cavendish, a 
brother of the Duke of Devonshire, show that the 



4o8 My Beloved South 

gentleman lived well and had a large establishment, as 
he bought a hundred and seventy-six poimds of beef at 
— lucky man! — threepence a pound: 

The Honourable Wm. Cavendish, Esq. : 

Buy 56 Venison @3d. 14 
Buy 2 Pigs @6/- 12. 

Buy 176 Beef @3d. 44. 

Buy I Bear Skin @io/- 10. 



£4. 



George Washington, who was not only a devoted 
husband, but a model son-in-law and step-father, 
brought his family over the mountain in 1796 for the 
benefit of the health of little Patsy Custis, and camped 
at Warm Springs, hoping that the healing waters would 
cure Patsy. Probably there was a large party, as he 
had invited his brother-in-law, Colonel Bassett, and his 
whole family, which meant wife, children, servants, and 
horses, to join him and wrote, "You will have occasion 
to provide nothing if I can be advised of your intentions 
so that I may provide accordingly." 

Doubtless then, as now, there was a pool, and this 
kind, warm, sulphur water flowed at the present rate 
of twelve hundred gallons a minute. The open-air 
life must have been exhilarating and health giving, as 
the visitors lived in strong tents pitched underneath the 
trees of the primeval forest. Certainly George Wash- 
ington enjoyed his stay. He wrote to a friend: 

I think, with you, that the life of a husbandman is the 
most delectable. It is honourable, it is amusing, and, with 
judicious management, it is profitable. To see plants rise 
from the earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty 



My Healing South 409 

of the labourer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which 
are more easy to be conceived than expressed. 

And the Washingtons in 191 1 are still faithful to the 
Warm Springs. Maria Washington Tucker, an unpre- 
tentious, simple, friendly lady, the daughter of George 
Washington's nephew, Augustine, and wife of Bishop 
Beverly Tucker of Virginia, the happy mother of 
thirteen children, has been with her husband and some 
members of her family at the Warm Springs this 
summer. 

By 1820, the Warm Springs had become a fashionable 
resort. The arrivals and departures of half the well- 
known families of the South are recorded in the mottled- 
backed, musty, brown-leaved old registers. On August 
7, 18 18, ten years after he had been President, 
Thomas Jefferson arrived there with one servant and 
two horses. He always maintained republican simpli- 
city of life, although his house, " Monticello, " near 
Charlottesville, was modelled after an Italian palace. 
I don't understand how the Clerk of the Registers 
confined himself to merely writing, "Thomas Jefferson, 
two horses and one servant." He should have added: 
"This great man, a former President of the United 
States, the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
the father of the Virginia University, an intelligent 
lover of architecture who made the design for the 
Capitol of Richmond, the University, and his own 
beautiful house, looked well, and was modest and simple 
in his demeanour. He spoke to his friends among the 
guests with gracious dignity. After the long journey, 
his body servant unpacked his carpet-bag and made 
him comfortable. He likes the baths and will remain 
some days or a week." Jefferson must have been an 



410 My Beloved South 

abstemious man, for there is neither whiskey, brandy, 
nor gin charged to his accoimt. 

Alexander Hamihon arrived at the Springs on March 
10, 1800, with one horse and no servant. He must 
have loved the Warm Springs, or perhaps Mrs. Hamil- 
ton and the children were spending the summer there, 
and he could never remain long away from his beloved 
eldest daughter, who, young, gifted, and beautiful, lost 
her reason and never recovered it at the time of his 
tragic death. For he visited the Springs again in May, 
June, and July and made frequent visits in the following 
summer also. 

In July, 1820, Austin Brockenborough arrived with 
his "ladye, " his daughter, three servants, and two 
horses. Probably the place, then as now, was already 
celebrated for "mint juleps," for Mr. Brockenborough 
had several charged to his account each day. On July 
5, 1820, Craven Peyton, "ladye," daughter, two 
servants, and two horses arrived. They were cous- 
ins of the Duvals, my mother's family, and lived 
in Richmond. On August ist came James Chesnut 
from South Carolina with his "ladye, "six children, 
five servants, and eight horses. He drank ale, 
port, and brandy and in a few days his bill amounted 
to four hundred and twenty dollars. The Chesnuts 
were rich and evidently lived well. John L, Barn- 
well arrived from Charleston on September 16, 
1820, with "daughter and son, three servants, and 
seven horses." The Barnwells were apparently a 
clean family, for they favoured the laundress in their 
week's stay with seventy -one pieces of clothing, "to be 
washed and clear starched." Also, the father and son 
drank a good deal of porter (what a strange fancy for a 
summer drink !) and Madeira, and smoked many cigars. 



My Healing South 411 

Charles L. Francisco evidently ordered many things 
through the Warm Springs Company, for his accounts 
are long, complicated, and extensive. He built and 
lived at the beautiful place a mile from the hotel called 
"The Oaks" which is rather a misnomer, as the house 
looks like an Italian villa. 

The present hotel, built not later than 1820, is in the 
English style of architecture with the addition of a 
noble pillared balcony. It stands in extensive wooded 
grounds with grass as green as that of Windsor Park. 
Already the beautiful maples are turning scarlet and 
gold, for this sweet valley is three thousand feet and 
more above the sea, and the nights, cool throughout 
the summer, are almost frosty in October. 

Mrs. Eubank, a tall, dignified, handsome lady, came 
here from South Carolina to spend the summer 
many years ago. She met Colonel Eubank, a fine, 
dashing widower, and he followed her back to her 
mother's plantations and there she married him. Mr. 
McGuire, president of the Corcoran Art Gallery, who, 
with his wife, has spent thirty summers here, told me 
that Colonel Eubank was the very soul of open-hearted 
hospitality. He heard him enquire of a Professor who 
was leaving the next day, "Why are you going away 
so soon?" The Professor hesitated a moment, and 
said, "The fact is, I cannot afford to stay any longer." 
And Colonel Eubank answered, "It will give me 
the greatest pleasure to have you remain another 
fortnight as my guest." The spirit pervading the 
house was that of kindliness, obligation, and protection 
to the people under his roof, and to his employees, and 
it remains so still. 

After his death Mrs. Eubank assumed the responsi- 
bility of the hotel, her lifelong friends and servants 



412 My Beloved South 

making it comparatively easy for her. The head- 
waiter, a courtly black gentleman, with flowing, Dun- 
dreary side-whiskers, has been here twenty-nine 
years. One of the cooks who lately died of old age 
had been here forty years. The old watchman, who 
walked about the place all through the night, swinging 
his old-fashioned lantern, and who often stopped 
by my wakeful window to give me a word of sympa- 
thy and ask, "When in de name of sense is you gwine 
to sleep?" had been here forty-five years. He, too, 
died in September. The negroes know they have not 
only an understanding mistress but a friend in Mrs. 
Eubank, and they return again and again, imbued with 
the feeling of coming home. 

The fine white ballroom has been the scene of more 
than one jollification for them this summer. There 
was a splendid cake-walk, the darkies all in fanciful and 
gay attire, with several big frosted white cakes as 
awards for the best dancers at the end of it. John 
Carter, the chief cook, a really talented comedian, was 
Master of Ceremonies. Later there was a midsummer 
wedding with my maid Constance as the bride, wearing 
a white silk dress and a tulle veil so voluminous that it 
looked like a Norwegian waterfall near Christiania 
called " Bride of the Mist. " The clergyman stood in an 
arch of white flowers with a bell suspended from the 
centre. The groom and the bride, kneeling on hassocks 
in front of him, were married according to the ritual 
of the Episcopal Church and every detail was quite 
comme il Jaut. Afterwards they danced in the lower 
room of a house with a ballroom and a piano which is 
used entirely for the entertainment of the servants. 

But the concert of the waiters and chambermaids was 
by far the most interesting of their entertainments. 



My Healing vSouth 



413 



They gave a number of characteristic part-songs in 
wonderful rhythm, with hands and feet and body in 
swaying movement and expressive gestures, keeping 
perfect time. The songs were all negro words and 
melodies. Some of them were even improvisations. 
They received many encores and John Carter, at my 
request, gave "Poor Mourner You Shall be Free." 
William, who brings my breakfast in the morning, 
wrote the music. 



i 



Moderato. 



^ 



ivzijsziltzivil 



t r ^ 4 4 jL 



r ^ ^ r- 



^— ^ * * 



KJ e- 

Poor mourner, you shall be free I Poor mourner , you shall be free I 



i 



w 



>ij ^ 



4^=4?^ 






4t=f^ 



-#— ^ 



it=:it 



Poor mourner , you shall be free I When the good Lord calls you home. 

" I got a gal, she 's just the card, 
She works over in the white folks' yard, 
She cooks de chicken, she saves me de wing, 
She thinks I 'm workin' when I don't do a thing. 

1st Chorus : Swing easy, you shall be free. 

On pork chops greasy, you shall be free, 
Ain't I teasin', you shall be free. 
When de good Lord calls you home. 

Every night at half pas' eight, 
I go marchin' to de white folks' gate. 
When I get there I take a stand. 
Get my meals out de white folks' pan. 

2d Chorus: Ain't I foolin', you shall be free, 
Ain't I foolin', you shall be free, 
Ain't I foolin,' you shall be free, 
When de good Lord calls you home. 



414 My Beloved South 

My old mistus, she promised me 

Befo' she died, she was gwine to set me free, 

She lived so long, till her head got bald, 

I thought the poor old lady would n't die at all. 

3d Chorus : Poor mourner, you shall be free, 
Poor mourner, you shall be free, 
Poor mourner, you shall be free, 
When de good Lord calls you home. 

See dat nigger layin' behind dat log, 
Hand on a trigger and his eye on a hog, 
De gun went bang, the hog fell blip ! 
De nigger jumped on him with all his grip. 

4ih Chorus: He loves his pork chop, you shall be free. 
He loves his middlin's, you shall be free. 
He loves his chitlin's, you shall be free. 
When de good Lord calls you home. 

Bake dem biscuit, bake 'em brown, 
Turn dem flapjacks roun' and roun'. 
Shake dat feather bed and shake it light, 
'Cause Ole Marse Johnson's gwine to spen' de 
night. 

5th Chorus: In his slumber, you shall be free, 
A sleepin' easy, you shall be free, 
A sleepin' easy, you shall be free, 
When de good Lord calls you home. 

The negroes here are usually from Charlottesville and 
are very often employed in the University of Virginia, 
or in the houses of the Professors there. They are 
thoroughly respectable servants with excellent manners 
and untemptablc honesty, for, living in a little cottage, 
I have left money, jewellery, and clothes in unlocked 
drawers, and have lost nothing all the summer, which is 



My Healing South 415 

more than I can say for the white servants in New York 
hotels who never fail to appropriate a few of my 
belongings (alas, my tiger's whisker!) whenever I visit 
that rapacious and ruthless city. Faithfulness is indeed 
the fashion of the Warm Springs ; it is in the very atmo- 
sphere of the place. 

"Have you been at Warm Springs before?" "No," 
you say, "have you?" "Oh yes," the lady answers 
sweetly, but with a superior and patronising air; "we 
have spent twenty summers here." Another says, 
"This is our twenty-fifth summer." Some one else 
meekly remarks, "We have only been here thirteen 
summers." No one would have the hardihood to 
mention four or six summers. Why announce your- 
self as a vulgar newcomer? When you see a girl dive 
like a blue or a pink arrow, according to the colour of 
her brief bathing-dress, and swim fifty feet under water 
across the pool, you may be sure her first experience 
was as a baby when her black nurse held her in her 
arms and let her see all the pretty ladies swim, her 
young mother among them. Now her mamma, not 
quite so young, sits and crotchets on the balcony, while 
the daughter swims. 

Louise Gibson, a strawberry and cream goddess, is 
eighteen, and she has spent just eighteen summers here. 
Her grandmother probably came at about the same 
age. She still comes with her son, George Gibson, the 
father of Louise, an accomplished musician and a man 
of many parts. His tall, graceful wife, in her garden- 
ing gloves and wide hat, always suggests to me "Eliza- 
beth and her German Garden." She is a picturesque 
conversationalist, and without any effort is a vivid maker 
of word pictures. How I have begged her to write a 
book and call it " The Worship of Ancestors," for she be- 



4i6 My Beloved South 

gan her married life as a young bride with a household 
consisting of her mother-in-law, an elderly cousin of her 
mother-in-law (now eighty -eight) , a nurse of her hus- 
band's (now ninety-two), and Charlotte, an old negro 
coDk, who belonged originally to her husband's grand- 
mother. Old Charlotte's young mistress once said 
politely and appealingly to her, "Don't roast the 
beef so much, Charlotte; we like it rare." Charlotte 
looked very determined and said, " Dead Mrs. Gibson 
liked her meat well done." And well done it was 
always served, until Charlotte, very unwillingly, died. 
Mrs. George Gibson is still young and handsome, but 
she says the elderly cousin has now entirely forgotten 
the difference between their ages. ' ' Do you remember, ' ' 
she asks her, "when the Indians were camped just 
outside Baltimore?" And one day she complained 
of the want of gallantry among men; "no one ever 
comes to serenade Sara." 

"Fancy," said Mrs. George, "on our broad street, a 
constant thoroughfare for traffic, a young man standing 
under Sara's window on a moonlight night, tuning up a 
guitar and beginning, 

'From the desert I come to thee 
On a stallion shod with fire — ' 

Honk ! Honk ! from a motor — 

' And the winds are left behind 
With the speed of my desire — ' 

Ping! Ping! from a street car. Ping! r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r — ur 
as it curves round the corner — 

' I love thee, I love but thee 
With a love that cannot — * 



My Healing South 417 

Rumble, rumble, rumble from a truck waggon — 

' die. 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old — ' 

Ping! Ping! 'Hurry up,' from the car conductor, 
* Gee ! but you 're slow. ' Ping ! 

* And the leaves 
Of the Judgment Book unfold.' 

Honk! Honk! 'Cheer up. Come along' (from the 
conductor of the car). 

"No, " said Mrs. George, "the horn of the motor has 
killed the twang of the guitar, but Eighty-eight happily 
lives in the past of serenades and does n't even realise 
the present of electricity." 

In the South, Duty is a thing still in observance and 
the impossible is made possible through the power of 
that almost obsolete word. This summer a young 
Judge used to sit on the balcony with his two mothers- 
in-law, two sets of children, and one wife. After the 
death of his first wife, his mother-in-law came to live 
with him and take care of his children. He married 
again, an only daughter, and her mother could n't 
live alone, so she too joined the family circle. Then 
came more babies and there they all were, quite united 
and happy together. 

This is, indeed, a dear old-fashioned place. The peo- 
ple, the habits, the customs are all of the antebellum 
South. "Aunt Fanny," a sprightly black lady of 
seventy-five years' slim alertness, with great dignity and 
self-respect, and reserved manners, has had charge of 
the bath for thirty-five years. A party of Northern 
people, gay young men and women from the Hot 



41 8 My Beloved South 

Springs, drove over to see the place, and going into 
ecstasies over the great pool they said, "How delight- 
ful it would be to have a swimming party here. Could 
we," they asked Aunt Fanny, "arrange something of 
the kind?" Aunt Fanny was shocked, looked severe, 
and said, "Ef you-all is all kin folks maybe you might 
go in togedder. " Her modesty created great mirth in 
the party, to whom, nevertheless, she could have given 
lessons in dignity and reticence. 

I slip out of Hollyhock Row, where I live, at twilight, 
and run down in my kimono to the bath after closing 
hours, but Aunt Fanny extends her clemency to a work- 
ing woman, and I swim oftentimes for an hour round and 
round in the soft, warm, velvety water, in that magic 
pool, sometimes floating on my back and looking up 
through the open dome at the big brilliant stars with the 
beautiful constellation of Lyra in the centre. Once a 
little owl flew in, circled round and round, looked at me 
with his big eyes, and flew out again. At half-past 
seven exactly a familiar, delicious perfume floats in, 
the smoke of Virginia tobacco from a corn-cob pipe. 
My Mammy, oh, so long ago, smoked a corn-cob pipe 
every evening in her cabin, and I say softly to myself, 
"I am in my Beloved South, in Virginia." The water 
is very warm, the stars are very near. I shall have hot 
rolls, fresh butter, quince jelly, and " crumbs of comfort" 
for my supper. 

Edmonia Francisco, not the fancy name but the real 
one of a beautiful girl, with blue eyes and eyebrows 
of so entrancing a shape that they must, in an idle 
moment, have been drawn by Cupid, is typewriting my 
book. She has borrowed a buggy for to-morrow and 
is going to drive me through Dunn's Gap and after- 
wards I am to sup with her and eat generous ears 



My Healing South 419 

of "Country Gentleman," a brand of com which I 
can highly recommend. As I come up from my bath, 
surely I must be a child again, for a very sweet, little 
young voice is singing to the accompaniment of a 
guitar: 



" The years creep slowly by, Lorena; 

The snow is on the grass again; 
The sun 's low down the sky, Lorena, 

The frost gleams where the flowers have been, 
But the heart throbs on as warmly now 

As when the summer days were nigh. 
Oh, the sun can never dip so low 

As down affection's cloudless sky. 



"A hundred months have passed, Lorena, 

Since last I held that hand in mine. 
And felt the pulse beat high, Lorena, 

Though mine beat faster far than thine. 
A hundred months, 't was flowery May, 

When up the hilly slope we climbed 
To watch the dying of the day 

And hear the distant church bells chime. 



We loved each other then, Lorena, 

More than wc ever dared to tell; 
And what we might have been, Lorena, 

Had but our loving prospered well. 
But then, 't is past, the years have gone, 

I '11 not call up their shadowy forms, 
I '11 say to them, 'Lost years, sleep on, 

Sleep on, nor heed life's perilous storms.* 



420 My Beloved South 

"It matters little now, Lorena, 

The past is the eternal past ; 
Our hearts will soon lie low, Lorena, 

Life's tide is ebbing out so fast; 
There is a future, oh, thank God! 

Of life this is so small a part — 
'T is dust to dust beneath the sod, 

But there, up there, 't is heart to heart. " 

"Lorena," "Juanita," and "Kathleen O'Moore," 
are the first songs I remember. They belonged to the 
repertoire of my mother and my aunt, Florida Howard. 

As George Gibson left the supper room he stopped for 
a moment at my table. Looking at a dove-coloured 
bit of brocade fastened with crystal buttons, I said, 
"What a smart waistcoat!" 

" My grandfather wore it at the coronation of Queen 
Victoria," he said, "when he was visiting his cousin, 
Lord Macaulay. " 

" Good gracious ! And you speak of it, " I said, " as if 
you had bought it at Wanamaker's ! I think you should 
put it in a gla§s case. Where are the rest of the 
clothes your grandfather wore?" 

"My grandfather, to his credit," he said, "was more 
impressed with the beautiful voice of the young Queen 
than by his own attire. " 

"Maybe," I said, "Fanny Kemble was seated by 
your grandfather. She was a splendid elocutionist 
herself, and wrote: 

" The Queen's voice was exquisite; nor have I ever heard 
any spoken words more musical in their gentle distinctness 
than the 'My Lords and Gentlemen,' which broke the 
breathless silence of the illustrious assembly, whose gaze 



My Healing South 421 

was riveted upon that fair flower of royalty. The enuncia- 
tion was as perfect as the intonation was melodious, and I 
think it is impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than 
that of the Queen's EngUsh by the EngHsh Queen." 

After my long swim I had a good night's sleep which 
was lucky, for next morning Thomas Underwood Dud- 
ley woke me rather early. He is familiarly known by 
his initials as " Tud " and is an unusually silent, fas- 
cinating, haughty black spaniel. He lives in the 
picturesque cottage opposite mine, where his popular 
mistress, Mrs. Woodward, dispenses true Kentucky 
hospitality. 

If any one is depressed or down, one of her mint 
juleps changes the entire complexion of the world to 
coideur de rose. "Tud, " finding some delightful mys- 
terious thing in the grass, had put aside his usual 
aristocratic indifference for excited sniffles and barks. 
I was glad to get up and was fresh for work in the 
morning and my drive with Edmonia in the afternoon. 

In spite of her occasional fancy flights in typing, I can 
say to this charming girl : 

Thou wouldst be loved? Then let thy heart 

From its present pathway 'part not! 
Being everything which now thou art, 

Being nothing which thou art not. 
So with the world thy gentle ways, 

Thy grace, thy more than beauty. 
Shall be an endless theme of praise. 

And love — a simple duty. 

What an entrancing drive we had in the goldenest of 
afternoons, through the close greenery of Dunn's Gap, 



422 My Beloved South 

with brown waterfalls tumbling over great banks of 
ferns, and everywhere bushes of rhododendron and 
laurel. Bluebirds darted across the road and the voice 
of the thrush was heard far away in the woods, and as 
he sang his song, the meadowlark answered him with 
sweet neighbourliness in clear flute-like notes. The 
goldfinch, who is afraid of nothing, cocked his head on 
one side and made an impudent remark as we passed 
by. Where the sun penetrated through the dense 
foliage and induced the goldenrod to blossom, it seemed 
weighed down with drifting autumn leaves, but pre- 
sently the leaves rose, opened, and butterflies flew away, 
disclosing beneath the pale brown an undersurface in 
rich mottlings of grey and orange. In wonderful con- 
trast there were black velvet butterflies, very large 
and languidly lazy, which, when disturbed as they 
hovered over some flower, obligingly rose slowly above 
our heads, that we might see the glittering blue and 
silver lining of their wings. 

Sometimes we met cows being driven home by a 
negro woman who would call to them, "Soo-kee, So-o- 
o-kee, Soo-cow, " and once a young cow came along 
looking archly astonished as if to say, "I did n't know 
you wanted me, " then stopped again to snatch mouth- 
fuls of grass before entering the cow-shed to be milked. 
One solitary redbird in a little tree of silver poplar 
called, ' ' What-cheer ! What-cheer ! " as we drove along, 
and we saw a few late groups of that charming wind- 
flower, the anemone, white and pink and purple. Back 
in the woods a little patch of harebells grew, and lower 
down, in a protected hollow, were bleeding-hearts and 
adder's-tongue, closely guarded by the clasp of their 
furry silvery leaves. Farther along, near a maple tree, 
the top scarlet, the centre green, with golden imder 



My Healing South 423 

branches, bloomed belated Dutchman's-breeches, and 
the sweet purple daisy, "farewell-summer," for summer 
going all too quick, had already begun to crowd and 
push and jostle the other flowers. 

When we left the Gap and followed the open road, 
the wonderful waves of towering mountains as far as the 
eye could reach were bathing themselves in blue, violet, 
and purple shadows, and where a delicate mist had 
floated over a hill it was the soft colour of palest laven- 
der. The sunset was splendidly gorgeous, as mountain 
sunsets so often are. The sky, a deep transparent 
sapphire blue, was smeared with masses of torn, flame- 
coloured clouds like long fiery streamers, stretching 
across it to the east. And in the west, a translucent 
lake of ruddiest gold was flecked with thick, rugged 
little clouds of deepest purple. Below this line flowed 
a river of clear, vivid aquamarine, and long water- 
falls of purest gold descended from the high dome 
centre, flanked by great clouds which, like saffron 
ships, scudded away to the north. A splendid, glowing, 
flaming riot of colour, full of richness and soul-satis- 
fying beauty, thrilled the world. 

Let the world roll blindly on! 

Give me shadow, give me sun, 

And a perfumed eve as this is, 

Let me lie. 

Dreamfully, 

When the last quick sunbeams shiver, 

Spears of light athwart the river. 

And a breeze, which seems the sigh 

Of a fairy floating by. 

Coyly kisses 

Tender leaf and feather grasses, 



424 My Beloved South 

Yet, so soft its breathing passes, 

These tall ferns, just glimmering o'er me, 

Bending goldenly before me, 

Hardly quiver. 

I have done with worldly scheming, 

Mocking show and hollow seeming! 

Let me lie 

Idly here. 

Lapped in lulling waves of air, 

Facing full the shadowy sky. 

Fame! — the very sound is dreary! 

Shut, O soul! thine eyelids weary, 

For all Nature's voices say, 

' 'T is the close — the close of day.' 

Thought and grief have had their sway; 

Now sleep bares her balmy breast. 

Whispering low 

(Low as moonset tides that flow 

Up still beaches far away; 

While, from out the lucid West, 

Flutelike winds of murmurous breath 

Sink to tender-panting death) , 

'On my bosom take thy rest 

(Care and grief have had their day !) ; 

'T is the hour for dreaming. 

Fragrant rest, elysian dreaming!' 

At nine o'clock as I enter the hotel grounds and walk 
towards the little white cottage which in the last three 
months has grown like home to me, I look to the right 
and see the friendly lights of a larger grey cottage, 
nestling against the side of a hill almost in the arms of 
three protecting trees. On the balcony is a big stone 
jar filled with great branches of scarlet autumn leaves, 
and inside is the familiar sound of a typewriter. It is 



My Healing South 425 

gifted Mary Johnston giving little taps and bringing 
forth big ideas, for she is busily at work on her second 
great battle book, Cease Firing. I have had what I 
hoped for, the four blessed seasons of the year in my 
beloved South; the soft and friendly winter, the early 
spring, when all nature breaks into bud and blossom. 
What joy it has been to go once more into the woods 
and to hunt for the faint pink shy arbutus, and to see 
May's starry crown. First the little, soft, many-leaved 
dandelion, the orange disk that Henry Ward Beecher 
said was the most democratic flower in the world, for 
it blossoms in every land; and the pale early primroses, 
and golden crocuses and fragrant narcissus, the tender 
jonquil, the marigold and daffodil — they have all 
bloomed in their sweet time, for spring loves to pattern 
her green carpet with these delicate shades of yellow. 
And I have had the summer which has brought back 
the sight of many sweet and longed-for friends — the 
early oleander, the crepe-myrtle, the jessamine, the 
silver bells, the pink mimosa — and I 've listened for 
the whisper of the snow-white fringe-tree and the rustle 
of the leaves of the aspen. I have seen the flash of the 
redbird and heard his sweet song, and have waited in 
the dusk of the evening for the myriads of fireflies to 
dart upward like fairy lighthouses, and the glowworm 
to make his path of fire through the warm, scented grass. 
I have heard the frogs sing their mellow midsummer 
chorus, and the mockingbird his full-throated, passion- 
ate, midnight love-song. And I 've Hstened for the big 
homed owl, far away in the deep cool wood, to give his 
long hoot and awaken the whippoorwill to his plaintive 
note, and I have looked up once again into the pene- 
trable sky of a Southern night and found regal Corona, 
splendid Sagittarius, proud Scorpio, and the beautiful 



426 My Beloved South 

clear-eyed Virgo shining with friendly nearness, and in 
the depths of the heavens that mysterious luminous 
radiance, as if battalions of unseen stars were 
approaching with silver footsteps to make themselves 
visible. 

I have waited for the Indian summer, and seen the 
crimson sun slowly, softly, regretfully dying into the 
west, the deep purple twilight shadows giving warm- 
hued foliage ruddier tints, and the mildness of the 
season inducing a little delicate grain to peer out from 
the rich ground. The far-away mountain tops are 
brilliant with a reticent rose light, and the shadows are 
tenderer, softer, bluer than in the first days of spring. 
The tall poplars, the linden trees, the drooping willow, 
the birch, the lowly pine, the maple, and the laurel are 
all turned to gold, scarlet, and a deeper toned green. 
The grape vine, the sassafras, the Virginia creeper min- 
gle green and crimson together, the beautiful bunches 
of coral berries of the bittersweet are daily growing a 
mellower red, and deep in the woods the exquisite fairy- 
like Indian-pipe is heavy with great bunches of shining 
pearls mounted on waxlike stems. The ash and the 
sumach blaze, and the wind has a different voice from 
the spring. It is sadder but tenderer, yet wild and 
melancholy. The days are still full of an amber radi- 
ance; the Indian summer is but a glorification of autumn 
— the sun's jubilee before the winter begins. The nights 
are flooded with moonlight, and when the moon sinks to 
rest the heavens are like a sapphire chalice set in silver 
stars. The still evenings hold a late breath of summer, 
and the South — my South — has brought healing to my 
spirit. Hope speaks to me again. I can laugh. The 
sudden glory is mine that temporarily blots out all 



My Healing South 



427 



sad memories. And in my joumeyings to and fro in 
the world it shall never again be a long farewell to my 
beloved land but only: 



^ 



m 



-I — -—-J — I- 



-A P 



Ba-doo , Radoo , kind friends , Radoo , Radoo , Radoo , 



And 



e 



yt) molto rail. ^ 



-^^ 4. • i ^ 



^ 



if 



I nev - er more see you, you, you, I'll 



d? 



-4- 



s 



^ 



hang my harp on a weep-ing wil-low tree, 

ritard. ff molto rail. ^ 



And 



^E^i 



-A ^, v- 



may this world go well with you, you, you. 



NOV 25 1913 



" One of the most human and lovable of story-bool^ 
characters. " 

Utde Thank You 

Mrs. T. P, O'Connor 

Author of " My Beloved South" 

Fourth Large Printing' ^Hh Frontispiece 
$1.25 net. By mail, $1.35 

From the Author of "THEROSARY," Florence L.Barclay: 
"It is a gem : full of fascinating charm, which seems to 
me unique. There have been charming love stories and 
chaurming child stories, but in your book we have the 
two combined into a perfect whole. Do accept my 
wannest congratulations and good wishes for its success. " 

" Nothing could be more daintily written amd presented 
than this fascinating story. There is a charm about 
Little Thank You, upon whose rare personality heuigs 
his elders' fate, that fills the story with light, poesy, and 
brightness. A little gem." — 'Phila. Ledger. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



Colonial Homesteads 

And Their Stories 

By Marion Harland 

Author of " Where Ghosts Walk," etc. 

A Re-Issue, in One Volume, of " Some Colonial Home- 
steads " and " More Colonial Homesteads " 

5^ With 167 Illustrations. $350 net 
By mail, $3.75 

The author combines the accuracy of an his- 
torian with the charm of a story-teller. She 
has studied patiently and lovingly the traditions 
and historical associations that cluster about 
the old family estates founded by notable 
Americans of the Colonial period. How rich 
and varied is this lore, none can comprehend 
who have not, like her, visited the storied 
homes in person and had access to the family 
archives in each. Every house has its romance. 
The loves, the feuds, the tempers, the sports^ 
and the tragedies revealed by such research 
are interwoven with descriptions of the houses 
as we see them to-day, and faithful pen-pictures 
of the worthies who built and lived in them 
vhen the history of our country was in making. 

New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 



By IQatharine M. Jibhott 

Old Paths and Legends of 
New England 

Saunterings over Historic Roads with Glimpses of 

Picturesque Fields and Old Homesteads in 

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 

New Hampshire. 



Old Paths and Legends of the 
New England Border 

Connecticut — Deerfield — Berkshire 

Two volumes. 8vo, each containing about i^S 

Illustrations and a map 
Two volumes in a box, -$7.00, net, or boxed separately, 
each, $3.50, net 

*' At home on every inch of New England ground, familiar 
with all the legends clustering about its historic places, Miss 
Abbott has written a sort of glorified guide-hook, in which 
pictures largely replace dry descriptive detail, while the spirit 
of each scene is caught by some bit of vivid remembrance, some 
anecdote that imparts a living interest. Every step is enlivened 
by pleasant chat. Indeed, Miss Abbott is one of the most 
entertaining of cicerones as well as one of the best informed. 
Whether one be intent upon taking trips from Boston to points 
of interest in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hamp- 
shire, or prefer the less costly and more comfortable equivalent 
of fireside travels, her book is just the thing. It is beauti- 
fully made and lavishly illustrated with pictures of scenes in 
the places visited." — Fittsbtirg Gazette. 

Illustrated Descriptive Circular Sent on Request. 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



H 111 89 



■H--^-3r4--fra_^ 



<-. •' • • • 







St"-^* ^yt^k^y-^ J^^''^k.'\- co*.'i-^-'*°- 


























%^^\b* ^.'-.^^-'.-v* *<.*^'>^ **o 








*^\*;^..\ /.^i;.% .v^V^.*o, 




^*^ .^""-^ 



.-^^ 




^"^-^ 











.^^ '%. -.y^W* ^^^"^ ''•-%^.* 45^^' '\, \^ 



•>*... °*^^*/ \*^V V^'V 






*0 



i*<?fc 






.*^^\. 




%/ -'^K' "^-.^^ :&kx %^^ * 

















tA9^ 











.-^^v*. 




• H 



• nO 







vv 

* <^^%. 






^-./ .-^a^-t **..** .-^fe- \.^** .♦;«»•■. **..*^ 



^^% -.W*' /\ "'•"** <^^'"^<^ ^^S /"^ 



5^ 




iP-^K 






• •0' 



"^^^^^ 



HECKMAN l±J 
BINDERY INC. |M] 

#SEP 89 
N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 









,©»•, 






o_ * 








